Walter J. (reading-is-bliss) - , reviewed on 2/29/2020 + 73 more book reviews

As one who is definitely a fan of Baldacci, this book, the 4th in his Amos Decker/Memory Man series, was a real letdown for me. It starts out as a story about Amos who has agreed to go along with his partner Alex Jamison to help out Alex's sister in Baronsville, Pennsylvania. Barely into the story, Amos, who has taken vacation time to accompany Alex on this trip, suddenly finds himself in the throes of an investigation involving a series of killings and, at least from my point of view, the story got way too complicated way too fast involving so many characters doing way too many things, before I was even past the first few chapters, I felt like my head was going to spin. I found myself having to go back several times to try to understand who was who, and what was going on. Drugs, dead people, local cops and total mayhem and a plot I found so confusing I quickly lost interest. It was like the author realized himself his story was too complicated so then began to include page after page of explanations of what he'd just written a few pages earlier. I must say, in the final analysis, it took a great deal of tenacity to stick with it so that in the end I guess I understood, but I had to wonder if it was really worth my time. It left me hardly feeling satisfied and I can't help but believe that Baldacci must have sent this one to the press way too soon. I did give it 3 stars, only because I spent so much time reading it, I felt embarrassed to give it anything less. Yet I have little doubt if this was the first novel by this author I had read, I'd probably never read another, and that would be a real shame.

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