The Hit by David Baldacci

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This was my second vacation read.

Will Robie is back - this book occurs immediately after The Innocent.  The characters are all there - Julie Getty, Nicole Vance (FBI agent) and the Blue Man (Robie's connection inside the CIA).

And there has to be a bad guy - right.  This time the bad guy is a collegue - the second best shooter at the CIA - Jessica Reel.  Reel has decided that it is time for justice and begins killing off a secret group of collaborators.  It just happens that the group includes her handler and the second in command at the CIA.

Robie is put on her trail.  And because he has been slowly growing a brain again, he doesn't blindly follow his orders - he thinks a bit.

This was another great and fast read. It was more predictable and more far-fetched. But, that makes for an interesting story.  Robie and Reel are frenemies.  You see it coming and it doesn't disappoint.  The government machine is the big, bad ogre that they are really both against.  That also is not a surprise. But there is comfort in that formula.

 I enjoyed this one as well!

The Innocent by David Baldacci

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Baldacci is the perfect beachside read!  Short, staccato chapters filled with action that moves quickly and holds your attention!  This was the perfect book to kick off my oceanside reading!! If you look between the pages - you might even find a bit of sand! :)

Will Robie is an assassin and a very good one!  He works for the secret side of the CIA and does his job completely and carefully!  And then he stops.  He is in the midst of a hit - and things don't feel right - for the first time he asks questions of himself before he pulls the trigger (flash to Jason Bourne on the boat in the dark!!)  That hesitation puts in action a series of events that takes Robie out of automatic and into actually feeling!  A place he has not visited for a long time.

Robie, being a thorough hitman, always has a backup plan and even a backup for the backup. This night he escapes to a bus that travels between Washington DC and NYC every night - the Outa There bus.  While waiting for the bus to take him away to a safe spot he sees a young girl get on followed by an older man - someone clearly following her.  In an attempt to save this girl from her attacker - Robie is surprised to see Julie (the girl) able to fight him off for a bit, and then they flee off the bus together - moments before the bus explodes into thousands of pieces.  

So, against all of his training and preferences, Robie attempts to take care of Julie - yes this hardened, loner assassin begins to allow a tiny piece of his heart to feel again.  It isn't a sweet sappy moment - but rather a shock to both Robie and the reader's system.  But, it feels right!

This is a story of cold-blooded, ruthless people and the incredible lengths they will take to get what they want.  It is also an intertwined mystery of conspiracy on an unbelievable level.  

I greatly enjoyed the twists and turns and unexpected kindness of human beings!!

Read it!!

The Diplomat's Wife by Pam Jenoff

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Well - this just proves that summer is actually here! It's the first evening of summer vacation, it's 11:23 and I've finished my first book. I didn't start it tonight - it just so happened I finished it tonight!

This book was such a pleasant surprise. I loved the Kommadant's Girl. So, I picked up this one in the book store. I read the back and it sounded amazingly familiar - I figured it would be a repeat of the Kommadant and wasn't all that intrigued...until I started reading it!

This is the story of Marta - the Kommadant's killer. The story begins from the moment she drops over on the bridge after seeing Emma off to a safe future. Marta is captured and tortured by the Gestapo hoping for information about the resistance. She is eventually rescued by Paul, an American who is liberating the Nazi prison where she is kept.

They have a whirlwind romance and Paul proposes. Marta travels to London before Paul to meet up with the aunt of a fellow refugee. But, Paul never shows up - killed in a plane crash on the way to London. Devastated, Marta marries Simon, a diplomat she met on the boat ride to London.

That's about all I can tell you...except Marta does a covert mission back to Germany and meets up with Emma and finds out what really happened to Jacob and just whose baby Emma was carrying at the end of Kommandant.

She also meets up with....

You will just have to read it. This is another great story by Jenoff. There are just enough twists and turns to keep you involved, yet it's predictible enough to be comfortable. And true love prevails! Yippee! :)

Dingley Falls by Michael Malone

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I'm not sure about this book. I liked this but I didn't like it....

I was in the mood for a big old fat book that sucked me in to the world of the story. This didn't quite do that. It was big and fat - 588 pages. It was filled with odd and quirky New England characters. It took place in 1976 -the year of the bicentennial. But, I just couldn't quite get immersed. There were too many story lines, too many characters and not quite enough connection. It had everything it needed - but it just didn't quite make me escape.

So, let's see. Dingley falls is a basic village started by a disgruntled old English fellow who made his money and started factories in the 1800s. The town is divided by a river with the working class and factories on one side of the river and the stores and land owners on the other. Typical of lots of other places.

The story begins with 4 women who are some of the uppity ups. They are sucked in to the world of avant garde art of the 70s and bring a disgusting poet to thier town to read some of his filthy poems. He needs to be shown around the town to kill time and Beanie Abernathy is stuck with that. But, there is a connection between them - and by the end of the afternoon Beanie is willing to walk away from a 30 year marriage to "feel" with Richard Rage the poet.

So - at this point I was intrigued. I kept reading.

I was introduced to Polly and Joy - two girls on the edge of adulthood. A pharmacist, Sammy Smalter, who is also a hidden crime author. Oh yeah, he is also a descendent of one of the town founders and a 'dwarf.' There is also Judith Haig who is a real ice princess with a bad heart and her husband is the town cop. And then there is Limon Barnum, an antique shop owner and hidden neo-nazi with a desire to feel his life - it doesn't really matter if that is a good or a bad feeling. There is Chin Henry, the Vietnamese refugee married to a total wacko, Maynard Henry. A cynical newspaperman, a male librarian connected to the elite and a town dr. sure that people are exhibiting signs of heart problems when none should exist. It kept sounding more and more like Gilmore Girls - a dark Gilmore Girls.

And then.. hidden on a stretch of swamp outside the town there is an odd government facility. A germ warfare facility that noone in town knows anything about.

So these are some of the players. I was waiting for all these players to meet up and explode. But, that didn't happen. Instead some of the players sort of fizzle out to nothing. Others flash and explode in unexpected ways. But, I still didn't really care.

And. then. the. book. just. ENDS....

So, I feel like I've slogged through all these pages, been engrossed and been bored and at the end it just stopped.

I hate books like that!!!

Stone Cold by David Baldacci

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This is the third Camel Club book and they just get better!!!

I don't want to say too much - because nothing should be given away.

I will say that this picks up the story right after The Collectors.

Loose ends are tied up - new ravelings are discovered and teased open to leave gapping holes in the known past.

The Camel Club is important, but they are not the center of the story - instead Oliver and Annabelle are.

Oliver Stone/John Carr is amazing.

All I can say is BRAVO David Baldacci!!!

Read this one for sure - but not before you have read The Camel Club and The Collectors!!!

World Without End by Ken Follett

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I must admit I was a little disappointed. I feel like sort of a traitor admitting that.

I so loved Pillars of the Earth!
 I've had World for quite a while and have saved it until I had the time to really sink into it....

I did like it, but World was almost the same as Pillars - just 200 years later.

The deep love relationships are thwarted again and again.
The pompous, hypocritical church tries to control events again and again.
The main characters are the only town members with vision and common sense - again.
The nobility are cold, heartless, twisted and only cared about appearance and money - again.

There were chapters I felt like I was watching a traffic accident. I was too curious to stop, but it was so painful to read the details.

Had I read this first - I think I might have called it my favorite.
I cared about the characters more than Pillars. The plague and the 'witch' accusations are a part of history that I've actually heard of - so it made it all more plausible.

But - I also need to admit that I read into the single digits of the night more than once with this story.

Bottom line - I really liked the story, the characters, the whole plot. But, standing on this side and looking back - it felt too much like a rerun for a wholehearted recommendation.

Shucks!

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

This was an interesting and disturbing book.

It follows a 'typical' Afghanistan family for several months in the Spring after the Taliban fled from the country. The author is a female Swedish journalist who moved in with the family. She observed, traveled with the men, worked with the women, wore a burka, and according to her, "I have rarely been as angry as I was with the Khan family, and I have rarely quarreled as much as I did there. Nor have I had the urge to hit anyone as much as I did there."

One of my favorite aspects of the book is the way you see into the family life. Women are trully possessions and slaves. Their value is measured by the way they make their men happy - not only husbands, but fathers and sons as well. A man ALWAYS had more power than the women regardless of the age of the man or the woman. My guess is that was one of the reasons that Asne (the author) was so angry so often.

Although this was a fairly wealthy family - 11 lived in a 2 room apartment with inconsistent water or electricity. Sultan ( the bookseller, father and strongest family member) decided everything including who or if his youngest sister would marry or continue to be a virtual house slave is Sultan's home.

This was a great book to read after A Thousand Splendid Suns. This was the nonfiction version of life at the end of the book.

It is hard for my American sensibilities to understand how the power structure has evolved. It is almost impossible to imagine how it would feel to always accept that my sex makes me second rate. It was not only the Taliban who promoted this - Burkas and female subordination existed before their rule.

This book brought up more questions for me -as we try to understand a different culture there is so much to know.

I would recommend this one too!

The Camel Club by David Baldacci

This is the book that proceeds The Collectors. I have to admit I liked The Collectors better. In this one you meet Oliver Stone, the leader of the Camel Club and self proclaimed truth seeker. He has a shady and unknown past. He is joined in the club by 3 other eccentric older Washington D.C. gentlemen, each seeking the truth in their own way. All that is well and good - they just seem like some eccentric old fuddy duddies - until they witness a murder and become embroiled in a mass cover-up and plot to kidnap the President.

You also meet Alex Ford, secret service veteran and fellow seeker of the truth. Alex is sent to investigate the death of a young fellow National Security worker. It is here that the Camel Club and Alex join forces - rather reluctantly.

What follows is terrorism turned on it's head. Terrorism for the sake of the world - not for any single government or country. But, things go astray as money is thrown into the mix. Not all the plotters are completely altruistic (sp).

Anyway, this is very political. I liked the more personal side of the second book. Although this introduction certainly made me feel a bit more sorry for Oliver Stone and the things he had to give up. That seems to be a theme in many Baldacci books - men pushed beyond the breaking point due to past losses.

So - a good read - but not my favorite..