Finder spent much of his early childhood in Afghanistan and the Philippines before his family returned to the United States (Bellingham, Washington and Albany, New York, where he attended Shaker High School). Finder majored in Russian studies at Yale University, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He received a master's degree from the Harvard Russian Research Center in 1984, and later taught on the Harvard faculty.

While still in graduate school, Finder published Red Carpet: The Connection Between the Kremlin and America's Most Powerful Businessmen (1983), a controversial exposé about multi-millionaire Dr. Armand Hammer's ties to Soviet intelligence. Though Hammer threatened a libel suit, the fall of the Soviet Union opened archives that verified the truth of Finder's account.

Finder's first novel, The Moscow Club (1991), imagined a KGB coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Six months after the book’s publication, such a coup happened. The Moscow Club was eventually published in thirty foreign countries, and became a bestseller throughout Europe.

Finder's second novel, Extraordinary Powers (1994), about the discovery of a Soviet mole in the highest ranks of the CIA, debuted just days before the unmasking of CIA mole Aldrich Ames. The Zero Hour (1996) was the first novel ever written with the official cooperation of both the CIA and the FBI.

Paranoia (2004) was a New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback, as was Company Man (2005). Killer Instinct, (St. Martin's Press) was published in May 2006, debuting at #15 on the New York Times bestseller list. It won theInternational Thriller Writers Award for best novel in 2007. Power Play, published in 2007, debuted at #7 on the New York Times bestseller list, and was nominated for a Gumshoe Award. Vanished, the first novel to feature Finder's series character Nick Heller, was nominated for the 2010 International Thriller Writers Award for best novel.

Finder is a founding member of the International Thriller Writers Association, and serves as Financial Advisor to International PEN-New England [1]. He is also a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He writes extensively on espionage and international affairs for a wide range of publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife Michelle and their daughter Emma.

Joseph Finder gave the commencement speech for his alma mater, Shaker High School, for the class of 2006.

Nick Heller

1. Vanished, ISBN 0-312-37908-0, 2009, paperback 2010
2. Buried Secrets (Spring 2011. ISBN 0-312-37914-5 )

Stand-alone novels

• Red Carpet: The Connection Between the Kremlin and America's Most Powerful Businessmen, 1983 (out of print)
• The Moscow Club, ISBN 0-330-31350-9 paperback 1991 (out of print)
• Extraordinary Powers, ISBN 0-7528-2651-4 paperback 1994 (out of print)
• The Zero Hour, ISBN 0-7528-2650-6 paperback 1996 (out of print)
• High Crimes, ISBN 0-380-72880-X paperback 1998
• Paranoia, ISBN 0-312-94091-2 paperback 2004
• Company Man (retitled No Hiding Place in UK), ISBN 0-312-93942-6 paperback 2005
• Killer Instinct, ISBN 0-312-34747-2 (hardcover) 2006
• Power Play, ISBN 0-3123-4748-0 (hardcover) 2007