单选题 The pages of the Harvard Business Review are not usually populated by novelists. But Joseph Finder is just such a rarity. Recently, the HBR posted a fictitious case study by Mr. Finder on its website. Readers will now have a chance to comment; the most interesting contributions, as well as the remarks of several corporate grandees, will appear alongside the story in the printed version of the magazine in October.
In the case study, Mr. Finder describes a dilemma facing Cheryl Tobin, the newly installed chief executive of a big aerospace firm. She starts to suspect that her colleagues have engaged in massive corruption to win contracts. Ms. Tobin is also a central character in Mr. Finder"s new book, Power Play, which was released earlier this week. In the novel, her main concern is not corruption but an executive retreat on a remote island that goes horribly wrong.
A graduate of both Yale and Harvard, Mr. Finder took up novel-writing after flirting with a career at the CIA and taking a stab at journalism. He had written a non-fiction book about links between American businesses and the Soviet Union but had been unable to use some of the most fascinating material he had picked up, since his sources wanted it to remain off the record. So Mr. Finder wove those titbits into a political thriller instead. After three more novels on political themes, he decided to set his next book in the world of business.
There are many novels set in offices and boardrooms. The appeal of Mr. Finder"s lies not in the majesty of the prose—they are airport novels, not Pulitzer candidates—but in the plausibility of their plots and the accuracy of their depiction of corporate life. "I"ve not seen anything that couldn"t happen," says Skip Brandon, co-founder of Smith Brandon International, a corporate-intelligence company. "The business community is pretty interesting, with all sorts of characters which he brings to life with a level of realism people can relate to," says Bill Teuber, of EMC, a data-storage company.
Business journalism may provide plenty of facts and figures, Mr. Finder argues, but it seldom gives readers much of a feel for corporate fife. Fiction, in his view, can provide a more accurate picture than anything found in newspapers or management literature. At any rate, Mr. Finder is convinced that corporate insiders talk more candidly to him than they do to reporters.
He has found big companies remarkably willing to provide background material. For his book, Paranoia , he talked with high-ups at Apple, Cisco and Hewlett-Packard—a computer-maker whose subsequent involvement in a real-life case of corporate espionage may not have come as a surprise to Mr. Finder"s readers. For Killer Instinct , the company NEC helped him to understand what it was like to be an American working for a big Japanese electronics firm.

单选题 What is special about this online edition of Harvard Business Review ?

单选题 What made Mr. Finder start writing political thrillers?

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。题目问的是“什么原因促使法因德开始政治恐怖小说的创作?”。由文章第三段第二句“He had written a nonfiction book about links between American businesses and the Soviet Union but had been unable to use some of the most fascinating material he had picked up, since his sources wanted it to remain off the record.”可知：他曾写了一部关于美国企业和前苏联之间的非小说类的作品，但一直无法使用一些最有吸引力的材料，因为信息提供者希望这些材料不被人知。这与B项内容相符。故选B。

单选题 What is the main feature of Mr. Finder"s novels?

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。题目问的是“法因德小说的主要特点是什么?”。由文章第四段第二句“The appeal of Mr. Finder"s lies not in the majesty of the prose—they are airport novels，not Pulitzer candidates—but in the plausibility of their plots and the accuracy of their depiction of corporate life.”可知：法因德先生的作品不是胜在鸿篇巨制——它们一般是候机小说，更不能算普利策的候选作品——而在于情节的合理性和描绘商界生活的准确性。这与D项内容相符。故选D。