Famous Five meets Scooby Doo - Rated 
This has been the first David Baldacci book that I have tried and I suspect it will be the last.
The book has weak characters and an unconvincing plot.
To its credit, however, the book did have me in stitches when the criminal mastermind was finally unmasked.
Good but not perfect - Rated 
The main quality of the book is that it starts with two lines that it joins later into one without completely closing any one of the two. The two lines are so different that the book becomes kind of funny when they join. On one hand a band of four gangsters that are making millions on the gullible back of a casino boss - who is of course crooked and criminal - in Atlantic City. They succeed though one mistake will cost his life to the younger gangsters who did make the mistake because of his unquenchable hormones. The second line is a spy ring in Washington DC that involves the Library of Congress - LOC for favored fans - and the rare books reading room as the medium for the the circulating of the stolen data and then later as the target itself because of the resistance of some of its personnel. I can't give away all the details of the successful destruction of the spy ring, a destruction that is only reached because the leader of the ring who is an inner circle CIA spy makes several mistakes that are absolutely unexplainable. He does not kill the one person he has abducted for interrogation though he has no use of him any more afterwards and this abducted person is revealed as in the know of too many elements and hence as dangerous. Then we could accumulate the smaller mistakes from beginning to end and the list would be long. Let's mention the last one only that will cost te spy ring boss his life when he decides to have a conversation with the same person as before instead of killing him straight away. How dumb one spy can be! Or is he in love with his counterpart? But the novel suffers because of it. It looks and sounds amateurish when we expect everything to be great art and powerful conjuring magic. The book though has a meaning. It shows marvellously well that no security system is good enough to prevent crime, spying, etc. There is always a possible con or plot, a possible way to make a con or a plot successful. It seems easier to kill someone than to pass water in the morning. The result is that the security of the USA is always endangered because there is a lot of money on the intelligence market and small secrets, or big war plans, will always interest those who have millions they don't know what to do with, especially millions of dollars that are depreciating so fast on the international market, though not on the US market. And in the end the best protection for the country comes from simple law-abiding citizens in alliance with patriotic ex-security people and expert criminals who are patriotic for reasons that have nothing to do with the nation itself, but rather with the USA as the money making territory that they are for them and may not be any more after a successful terrorist attack or war. The security of the US is in other words a simple business in contingency. To believe otherwise is plain either vanity or short-sightedness.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, University Paris Dauphine, Université Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines.
Dull as dishwater - Rated 
It has taken me 4 months to finish this drab and boring book. I have gone on to read several others and sheer determination made me see it through to the end. The "main" characters are like a modern day last of the summer wine with the ability to do special things, kill, super memory as 2 examples. The twists are simply so obvious and uninspiring I was actually groaning as I turned the pages. Do yourself a favour and give this one a miss
What an incredible book. - Rated 
What an incredible book. Once you start reading it, you won't be able to set it down. I even got yelled at by my boss for reading the book on company time. I've read it 4 times and each time is like the first time. There is alot of information to process so get ready be blown away. It's awsome. Also, if you missed reading Tino Georgiou's masterpiece--The Fates, go and read it.
"Right now seemed a good time to end her collection of lost chances" (2.5 stars) - Rated
I had a great time reading "The Camel Club" and I was looking forward to this new book featuring four unusual but engaging characters. Sadly, this novel's quality does not even come close to most of Baldacci's other efforts. There are two main plots that come together midway through the book, and while one of these is enthralling and fast-paced, the other one bores us to death.
Annabelle is a witty and seasoned con artist, and she is putting together a team to try to pull-off a series of cons that would make them millionaires, and at the same time provide her with a long-expected revenge. This story is fun and engaging, with well-crafted and clever cons that lead us to read non-stop and leave us wanting to know what will come next. Meanwhile, the Camel Club gets involved in a situation consisting of the murder of the Speaker of the House and the head of the rare books division at the Library of Congress. This is where Baldacci goes awry, with a story that drags its feet and characters that do not come even close to being as interesting as they were when we first met them. Sadly, when the two story lines connect, the quality remains at the level of the Camel Club portion of the plot.
A contrived ploy, with spies and complex motives for murder do not salvage this novel. The only reason why it gets 2.5-stars is because of the parts having to do with Annabelle and her team, since the story there is really outstanding. There is one other thing that bothered me. One of the main uncertainties from the story was left unresolved, and the book ended in something resembling a cliff-hanger. Usually, when I read a novel I expect to have the main plot lines come to some sort of conclusion, and Baldacci, in an effort to sell his next book, pulls a trick on us. I would not recommend this book unless you have already read "The Camel Club" and want to know what happened to the characters. But even if you fall into this category, beware: you are not going to find exactly what you seek.
|
