Core Of Steel
After the inimitable character of Amos Decker (not to mention Will Robie and John Puller), bestselling author David Baldacci launches a new series with a remarkable female character, Atlee Pine, a fighting-fit FBI special agent with a “core of steel”, who, by choice, lives and works in a remote area near the Grand Canyon, called Shattered Rock. She has a backstory— when she was six years old, her twin sister, Mercy, was abducted and murdered by a ruthless serial killer. Her parents broke up after that and her father committed suicide. For years, Atlee’s survival instincts wiped out traces of the trauma, but when she reconstructs it with the help of therapy, she becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her sister.
However, this track is introduced and put aside, for the next book perhaps, as she is called upon to investigate the killing of a mule in the Canyon, and the disappearance of the rider, Benjamin Priest. It seems like an open-and-shut case—how far could man go in that wilderness?-- but Atlee soon has the load of officialdom landing on her head. She cannot understand why powerful people in her own bureau, the army and higher-ups in the government are so concerned about a dead mule.
She is warned off pursing the case, but she and her spirited secretary, Carol Blum, a sixty-year-old mother of six, go rogue (“like Thelma and Louise”) in a vintage Mustang, to investigate on their own, and run smack into a global conspiracy, involving the Russians and North Koreans.
The reason for the murderous mayhem unleashed on Pine and anyone else who gets wind of the big secret is absurd enough to be plausible in today’s crazy world, run by deranged leaders.
Long Road To Mercy is not one of Baldacci’s best, it tends to go all over the place, and then spend too much time with Atlee hiking in the Canyon. But still, he is a master of the thriller, and offers the reader a loud enough bang for the buck in the winning climax. The further adventures of Atlee Pine will be keenly awaited.
Long Road To Mercy
By David Baldacci
Publisher: Grand Central
Pages: 404
No comments:
Post a Comment