The Fallen

No Rest For The Weary

The Fallen is the fourth in David Baldacci’s terrific Amos Decker series, in which a head injury left the protagonist with hyperthemesia, or a perfect memory, and synesthesia which in his case, makes him associate events with colour—for instance, death as a disturbing electric blue. His inability to forget anything is perfect for his work as an investigator, but it also means that he always carries in his head the terrible image of the corpses of his wife and daughter (killed in the first book, Memory Man).

Over the last three books, Decker’s life unravelled, he pulled himself together and is now with a special task force of the FBI inducted by Ross Bogart (who stays out of this book, except as a voice on the phone), along with former journalist and best friend, Alexandra ‘Alex’ Jamison. The two promise to get each other’s backs in a crisis, but there is no romance yet.

Amos has reluctantly accompanied Alex on a vacation he does not want, since he has no life beyond work. They are visiting her sister, Amber and her family in a small town called Baronville. The once prosperous town has fallen on bad days, where John, the last of the Barons who founded it, lives in his decrepit mansion like a recluse, hated by other the inhabitants.

Socially awkward in the extreme, Amos is somehow befriended by Amber’s cute eight-year-old daughter Zoe, who is fascinated by the quiet giant with total recall. Amos may leave behind crime and adventure, but they follow him wherever he goes. Just lounging on the back porch of Amber’s house, he sees sparks of fire in the abandoned cottage next door. When he rushes to put out the fire, he finds two dead bodies in the house.

The local cops are hostile at first, going so far as to treat Amos as Alex as suspects. But when it turns out that there have been other unsolved and seemingly unrelated murders in Baronville, they reluctantly accept their superior investigative skills to help with the baffling case. There goes the vacation as the two have to get to work and put their lives on the line in the process.

As he starts to ask questions, Amos finds that the town in the grip of a drug addiction, which is often the case when there is an economic downturn. The only big employer there is a very large and new fulfillment centre (a place where vendors send merchandise to be delivered to buyers), and there is something not quite right out there.

When the big players from Drug Enforcement Administration turn up, the problems Amos faces are multiplied, while Alex and her family cope with the grief of the sudden death of Amber’s husband.

Baldacci deftly juggles the many tracks and a lot of colourful characters, so that The Fallenis a thrilling read and also a solemn look at the ugly side of the American dream.

The Fallen

By David Baldacci

Publisher: Grand Central

Pages: 432