Shane Kuhn

Part boardroom satire and part black-ops/Ninja comic book-style fantasy - with a punchline-quotient worthy of the staff of The Onion - "The Intern's Handbook" might as well be a novel conceptualized by a hypnotist. Because, once you start it, you're not gonna put it down until you're through. HR, Inc., is a company that places interns in a variety of positions across the corporate landscape. And why? Because no one's more anonymous in the "Wolf of Wall Street" social hierarchy than an intern. If said interns were trained hit-persons capable of stealing high-tech secrets and then eliminating CEOs in clever, non-suspicious fashion, why, they'd be incredibly valuable. First-person hero John Lago is on his final assignment for HR, Inc., and what starts out as a guide to future "interns" becomes a torrid page-burner of double- and triple-crosses and herrings so red they glow scarlet. If Lago seems to have the regenerative powers of a starfish, well, that's a small complaint in the larger-scale greatness of this first novel.

- RICK KOSTER