BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
(Print: 9/30/2003; 978-0446533126; Grand Central Publishing; Large Print edition; 544 p.)
(Digital: Yes.)
Audio: 10/23/2003; Duration 11:42:00; B0000W6ST0; Hachette Audio; unabridged
(Film: No).

SERIES: Sean King and Michelle Maxwell (Book 1)

CHARACTERS: (not comprehensive)
Sean King – Former Secret Service detective, now a Police officer in NC.
Michelle Maxwell – Secret Service detective
Joan Dillinger – Former Secret Service detective, current Private Investigator


SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
Not finding book 4 of the Spenser series too captivating, we decided to try something new. I’ve seen Baldacci books everywhere, so decided to try him. I always like to start with an author’s first book, but sometimes it’s hard to trust them to write better books, when I am not thrilled with the first. That’s the case with this one. The tale was good enough to hold our (hubby and I) attention, but it seemed to throw too many characters at us, a few which turned out to be no more than names, as far as I could recall. I think they might have been from a trial of one of the characters.
The plot was a bit complicated, and not entirely believable, but primarily, I didn’t care for the mostly insulting banter between characters. I know I should try the second book of the series and that even then it wouldn’t be fair to judge so early on, but it may be a while before I try. There’s a lot of other authors I’d like to investigate.

AUTHOR:
David Baldacci. (August 5, 1960) According to Amazon, David “is a bestselling American novelist. An attorney by education, Baldacci writes mainly suspense novels and legal thrillers.”
One of the reviewers of this book spoke of being a fan of later Baldacci novels and how he must be embarrassed at the laughable absurdity of this one (I'm not sure I'd go that far in my criticism). That makes me think I shouldn’t give up on this writer based on this book.

NARRATOR:
Scott Brick. (January 30, 1966) According to Wikipedia, Scott was born in Santa Barbara, California. He “is an American actor, writer and award-winning narrator of over 800 audiobooks, including popular titles such as Washington: A Life, Moneyball, Cloud Atlas, A Princess of Mars, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Atlas Shrugged, Sideways, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (filmed as Blade Runner), I, Robot, Mystic River, Helter Skelter, Patriot Games, Bid Time Return (filmed as Somewhere in Time), In Cold Blood, the Dune series, Ender's Game, and Fahrenheit 451. He has narrated works for a number of high-profile authors, including Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Michael Crichton, John Grisham, Clive Cussler, Stephen J. Cannell, William Faulkner, Nelson DeMille, Brad Meltzer, Harlan Coben, Gregg Hurwitz, David Baldacci, Orson Scott Card, Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, Joseph Finder, Tom De Haven, Stephen R. Donaldson, Nathaniel Philbrick, Terry Brooks, Steve Berry, Gene Wilder, Philip K. Dick, Dennis Lehane, Douglas J. Preston, Lincoln Child, Ayn Rand, Justin Cronin, Carl Hiaasen, Erik Larson, and Isaac Asimov, among others.
Pretty great list, right? I could probably just use this list to find other books I’d like. In this particular book though, I actually wondered if I would prefer a different narrator. Scott’s delivery has a tone, maybe I’d call it edgy, that didn’t seem to fit the story this time.
I’m familiar with Scott though. He has indeed narrated some of my favorites. I think I first encountered him when listening to Clive Cussler novels which he did a fabulous job with.

DEDICATION: “To my father, the greatest inspiration a son could have.” (NICE)

GENRE:
Fiction; Mystery; Thriller; Suspense

LOCATIONS:
North Carolina, Virginia

TIME FRAME
Not significant; 1996 / 2004; current with 9-year time-lapse

SUBJECTS:
Secret Service; Murder; Private Investigation; Presidential Candidates; Family ties; Revenge; mental imbalance; partnerships

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From the Prologue:
“September 1996
It only took a split second, although to Secret Service agent Sean King it seemed like the longest split second ever.
They were on the campaign trail at a nondescript hotel meet-and-greet in a place so far out you almost had to use a satellite phone to reach the boonies. Standing behind his protectee, King scanned the crowd while his ear mike buzzed sporadically with unremarkable information. It was muggy in the large room filled with excited people waving ‘Elect Clyde Ritter’ pennants. There were more than a few infants being thrust toward the smiling candidate. King hated this because the babies could so easily shield a gun until it was too late. Yet the little ones just kept coming and Clyde kissed them all, and ulcers seemed to form in King’s belly as he observed this potentially dangerous spectacle.
The crowd drew closer, right up to the velvet rope stanchions that had been placed as a line in the sand. In response, King moved closer to Ritter. The palm of his outstretched hand rested lightly on the candidate’s sweaty, coatless back, so that he could pull him down in an instant if something happened. He couldn’t very well stand in front of the man, for the candidate belonged to the people. Ritter’s routine never varied: shake hands, wave, smile, nail a sound bite in time for the six o’clock news, then pucker up and kiss a fat baby. And all the time King silently watched the crowd, keeping his hand on Ritter’s soaked shirt and looking for threats.
Someone called out from the rear of the space. Ritter answered the jibe back with his own bit of humor, and the crowd laughed good-naturedly, or at least most did. There were people here who hated Ritter and all he stood for. Faces didn’t lie, not for those trained to read them, and King could read a face as well as he could shoot a gun. That’s what he spent all his working life doing: reading the hearts and souls of men and women through their eyes, their physical tics.
He keyed on two men in particular, ten feet away, on the right. They looked like potential trouble, although each wore a short-sleeved shirt and tight pants with no place to conceal a weapon, which dropped them several pegs on the danger meter. Assassins tended to favor bulky clothing and small handguns. Still, he mumbled a few words into his mic, telling others of his concern. Then his gaze flitted to the clock on the back of the wall. It was 10:32 in the morning. A few more minutes and they’d be on to the next town, where the handshakes, sound bites, baby kisses and face reading would continue.
King’s gaze had turned in the direction of the new sound, and then the new sight, something totally unexpected. Standing facing the crowd and behind the hard politicking Ritter, he was the only one in the room who could see it. His attention stayed there for one beat, two beats, three beats, far too long. Yet who could blame him for not being able to pull his gaze away from that? Everyone as it turned out, including himself.
King heard the bang, like the sound of a dropped book. He could feel the moisture on his hand where it had touched Ritter’s back. And now the moisture wasn’t just sweat. His hand stung where the slug had come out of the body and taken a chunk off his middle finger before hitting the wall behind him. As Ritter dropped, King felt like a comet flying hell-bent and still taking a billion light-years to get where it’s actually going.”

RATING:
3 stars.
I had some trouble keeping track of characters and the connections between the two murders.
Too, I felt like dialogue between characters failed to convey what I suspected it was trying to. The banter between the primary protagonists didn’t work for me as preliminaries to bonding.
A relationship that formed between two female characters seemed prematurely antagonistic.

STARTED-FINISHED
6/25/2021 – 7/3/2021
( )

(2003)Not very good so-called thriller about Secret Service agents trying to figure out why a presidential candidate was kidnapped after another candidate was assassinated a few years prior. Not very plausible and I didn't care about the characters & what happened to them. Hack writing.

Yes it's fiction but the great ones make you a believer. This one was too far fetched. ( )

FROM AMAZON: Michelle Maxwell has just blown her future with the Secret Service. Against her instincts, she let a presidential candidate out of her sight to comfort a grieving widow. Then, behind closed doors, the politician whose safety was her responsibility vanished into thin air.

Living a new life on a quiet lake in central Virginia, Sean King knows how the younger agent feels. He's been there before. In an out-of-the-way hotel eight years earlier, the hard-charging Secret Service man allowed his attention to be diverted for a split second. And the presidential candidate Sean was protecting was gunned down before his eyes.

Now Michelle and Sean are about to see their destinies converge. She has become obsessed with Sean's case. And he needs a friend - especially since a series of macabre killings has brought him under suspicion and prompted the reappearance of a seductive woman he's tried hard to forget.

As the two discredited agents enter a maze of lies, secrets, and deadly coincidences, they uncover a shocking truth: that the separate acts of violence that shattered their lives were really a long time in the making - and are a long way from over....

Such a tease! I really enjoyed meeting King and Maxwell in this book and even though I hated the follow up to it, I will probably pick up some of the subsequent books featuring these characters. ( )