Review by:Icebreaker
It's hard to describe this book without giving too much of it away; think DieHard meets Total Recall meets The Game and you start to get the picture. "Vertical Run" is the proverbial page turner. Not a single detail is irrelevant and Joseph Garber weaves every single point and subplot into a terrifying thriller of human technology gone berzerk. David Elliot is just your average middle aged company executive. He has a lavish office, a beautiful wife he kisses goodbye every morning, and a ritual jog he takes from his New York townhouse to the company office. But Dave also has a past. A past so secret and disturbing that it's under government seal and never to be discussed. Could that dark past be coming back to haunt him? Is that why a team of elite commandos has set up camp in Dave's office tower, waiting to assasinate him? What has he seen that he wasn't supposed to? What has he heard that he shouldn't have? Why is it that everyone he's ever known or loved has suddenly started trying to kill him with no warning? Or is this all a hallucination? A medical side effect from being exposed to Agent Orange during his tour of Vietnam? You'll never guess which is which.  Garber has set up a tale of intrigue and suspense so intricate that even the most seasoned reader of the thriller genre will be hard pressed to guess the end.

From Publisher's Weekly:
David Elliot, businessman and Vietnam vet, is having an extraordinarily bad day. His boss has tried to kill him; code-named mercenaries stalk the corridors of his New York office building with orders to shoot him on sight; and even his wife and son have turned against him. To find out why everyone wants him dead, Elliot will reacquire skills he thought long gone, relive his previous few days on the job and find out just who his true friends really are-but first, he has to get out of his office building alive. Garber (Rascal Money) sets up Elliot's quandary convincingly, and if the forces arrayed against this resourceful hero seem a mite excessive, they reflect both the nature of the threat he unwittingly poses and the narrative's fashionably cynical view of how certain parts of the government clean house. The pace is fast, the action constant and the characters believable, especially the head mercenary, Ransome, who is in many ways Elliot's cold and ruthless twin. Elliot himself is more than just a sketchy action hero, thanks to flashbacks of his experiences in Vietnam, his adoption of some clever and surprising disguises and a quirky fondness for Mark Twain, whom he quotes throughout. Because Garber keeps things simple yet detailed, this highly satisfying, high-concept mix of D.O.A. and Die Hard, which tightens the suspense screws mercilessly and winds up with Elliot scaling the face of his office building, stands as one of the most invigorating thrillers of the summer. Major ad/promo; film rights sold to Jon Peters; BOMC alternate; translation rights: Ellen Levine. (Aug.)

From: Booklist
This bound-for-success thriller is not only a Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection, it's also destined for the big screen with Jon Peters set to produce. Mel Gibson or Harrison Ford could play all-American hero David Elliott, although stuntmen would doubtless perform the commando-style tricks Elliott uses to outwit his enemies. It's just another day at the office for Dave, until his boss tries to shoot him. Then his wife, coworkers, and kids turn on him, and a gang of FBI sharpshooters trap him in a New York skyscraper. What Dave can't figure out is why it all went bad. Good thing he's a Vietnam vet with Green Beret^-type training who handily remembers his hand-to-hand combat, kung-fu, marksmanship, and booby-trap-setting skills. He uses them all to keep his would-be killers at bay while he tries to figure out why he's suddenly become an endangered species. Garber knows how to spin a web of steadily increasing suspense, keeping his readers on tenterhooks trying to figure out what's going on while the action builds to a totally unpredictable ending. Book and movie are both likely to be big hits, so be ready with multiple copies. Emily Melton Copyright© 1995, American Library Association