The Last Mile

Memory Man Returns

In his first Amos Decker book, Memory Man, David Baldacci created a unique character—man with total recall. It sounds like a superpower but when memories are painful, it can be endless trauma.

In the earlier book, Baldacci gave Decker’s backstory--as a young football player, he had been blindsided in his first game and got hit on the head so violently that he was declared dead. When he was revived, something had happened inside his brain that made him “an acquired savant with hyperthymesia and synesthesia abilities.”  Which in simple terms means he can never forget anything even if he wants to.

After he recovers, he goes on to become a cop, and because he has an exceptional brain, makes for a very good investigator. One night Decker returns home to find his wife, little daughter and brother-in-law slaughtered. The shock unravels him—he gives up his job, loses his home and car, becomes a recluse, making a sparse living as a private eye.

By the end of the novel,  he had been offered a position with the FBI, by Agent Ross Bogart, along with his journalist supporter, Alexandra Jamison, to work on unsolved cases. He had put all his belongings into his car and started driving to his new life in Quantico. In the second Decker book, The Last Mile, he arrives at his destination and right into a case made for him.

Melvin Mars, a bi-racial sports star who was accused of murdering his parents, spent twenty years on death row and kept declaring his innocence. The day he is due to be executed (a chilling sequence), another death row prisoner in a far off town, confesses to the double murder.  Decker used to know Mars in the past and believes this is the case the should begin with; the others on the team are clinical psychologist Lisa Davenport, who agrees and the hostile Todd Milligan, who drags his feet.

They travel to Texas to meet Mars, who is in hospital after being attacked by evil prison guards and surprised to see the FBI on his side. In this book, Decker struggling with his weight problem is far less interesting than a man almost driven to suicide by despair. His amazing memory is not put to much use either, though his prodigious powers of investigation and deduction are.

After a terrific start, the story starts to get too convoluted and implausible, even though the twists come along nicely and the body count rises steadily. It’s worth a read for Baldacci fans.

The Last Mile

By David Baldacci

Publisher: Grand Central

Pages:  432