I’m sure that, if you are reading this blog, you have at least heard of David Baldacci and, most likely, read some of his books. I think he fits very well into the category of author I like and, so, I assume that you also like him or else you will, if you read him. He began writing in the late 1990s with a number of stand-alone novels and I’ve read a few of these. To be honest, I thought they were fine but not the greatest I have ever read. I think one of the main reasons for that is that, with a stand-alone book, you only encounter a character on one occasion and don’t get the chance to get to know them. I’m afraid that’s not really what I enjoy most so, it’s my fault, rather than his! As I’ve said many times, it’s good characters that I can get to know that I’m looking for and, since he began the ‘Camel Club’ series in 2005, that’s what Baldacci has provided.
Actually, that’s a little unfair because the first of Baldacci’s eight series of novels begin in 2003 with the Sean King and Michelle Maxwell series and I have read and enjoyed these. However, it was the Camel Club that really hooked me on his books. I have also read and enjoyed all the books in the John Puller, Will Robie and Atlee Pine series and I buy them as they are published but it is three of his other series that have really caught me as they get to exactly what I like about interesting characters. They are the aforementioned Camel Club members, especially Oliver Stone, and his two most quirky and (I think) imaginative characters, Amos Decker and Aloysius Archer. I recommend every single one of Baldacci’s books to you but it is these last three series that I’m going to concentrate on now and, if you haven’t done so already, try to persuade you to read!
So, since I’ve already mentioned them several times, let’s start with the Camel Club. There are five books in the series and I must admit right away that it’s a few years since I read them and I do find the plots/story lines a bit difficult to remember! I think that ties in with what I’ve said on a number of occasions about plots in this genre – of course you get some really good ones which keep you hanging on right to the end and with twists that you (at least I) can’t work out. However, a lot of them do tend to cover similar ground and it’s the characters and their personality traits, characteristics, idiosyncrasies along with their circumstances, history, skills and background that make them and the books featuring interesting and good to read.
That certainly applies with the Camel Club which, in the first instance consists of four pretty quirky characters! They are Oliver Stone, otherwise known as John Carr who is the leader and strongest character. He’s a former Green Beret and employee of a section of the CIA consisting of highly skilled government assassins (source Wikipedia) so he’s the tough guy. Reuben Rhodes is a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran who worked for the Defence Intelligence Agency so another tough guy! As you would guess from their backgrounds and history they are no longer in the full flush of youth but pretty useful guys to have around despite that! The other two members are not tough guys (quite the reverse, in fact), but they are both interesting characters and they have their own particular skills. Caleb Shaw is an extremely well-qualified librarian and Milton Farb, a former child prodigy who suffers from OCD and paranoia, but who is an IT genius. A motley crew, I know, and perhaps difficult to see as heroes but, believe me, you’ll warm to them and the books are certainly worth a try!
Next one up is Amos Decker and there’s no doubt we have another quirky character here! As Baldacci has moved along with the series, I think he has adapted the character quite a bit and made him a bit more mainstream and, probably, more generally acceptable to the reader. I liked him from the word go but, in the first book, he can come across as something of an anti-hero and he takes a bit of getting to know! He is an FBI investigator with an unconventional approach. He was a top- class American footballer who suffered horrific injuries and has developed a type of autism which has left him with a perfect photographic memory. That enables him to work quite effectively but, not long before the series starts, his wife, daughter and brother-in-law are murdered. He falls apart and leaves his job but comes back in the first book ‘Memory Man’ to try to find the killer. We have now reached the sixth book in the series ‘Walk the Wire’ and, as I said, I have seen changes in Amos as the stories have progressed. He still has his issues but he has developed quite a sophisticated sense of humour, he has a regular female partner who has a good understanding of him and I think he has probably become, as I said, more mainstream. I have to admit that, after enjoying the earlier books, my wife has gone off him a bit which contradicts what I have been saying but, for me, he hits all the right spots in being one of these characters which attracts me to the work of particular authors and he is strongly recommended not least because he is something a little bit different!
Finally, in this little piece, we have the character who I think might just turn out to be David Baldacci’s most imaginative creation of all – Aloysius Archer. We are only at the second book in the series ‘A Gambling Man’ which has only recently been published but I got hold of it and read it right away as I had enjoyed the first one so much. For me, the second one was, arguably, even better. However, when I began reading the first one, I wasn’t too sure and I’m just glad I persisted with it. I’ve said before that I don’t read a lot of historical novels and prefer modern fiction but there are a few examples in the blog of some pretty good material which is set in the past and pretty interesting because of it. The Aloysius Archer series falls into that category and I’ll give you just a short introduction to it. Watch out for my review of ‘A Gambling Man’ when I’ll be looking more closely at the series and letting you know how I think it is going.
So, in One Good Deed, it is 1949 and Aloysius Archer has just been released from jail after serving time for a crime which we think he didn’t commit and the suggestion is that that makes him quite a tough guy as life in a US jail in the post war years was probably not much fun. We don’t know much about him other than that life isn’t easy with no job, no cash and lots of restrictions placed on him by his parole officer. He very quickly manages to get a job collecting a pretty substantial debt on behalf of a powerful local businessman but that is even more complicated than it sounds and, no sooner has he started, a murder is committed and he becomes the number one suspect. To avoid going straight back to prison, he sets out to try to solve the murder and a pretty good plot with a number of interesting characters evolves from there.
At the outset, I wasn’t really convinced about Archer or the circumstances of the whole situation and I wondered where David Baldacci was going with it. However, as evidenced by this and the other series I’ve just described, he seems to have a real knack of coming up with unusual main characters in unusual situations which has made reading his more recent books a real and worthwhile voyage of discovery! At the same time as the Amos Decker and Aloysius Archer books have come on to the scene, he has persisted with his more mainstream characters such as John Puller, Will Robie and, more recently, Attlee Pine, making him, for me, one of the most imaginative, varied and readable writers of the detective fiction genre. I’m just really disappointed that the Camel Club series came to an end after only five books but I accept that it died a natural death as you’ll find out when you read them if you haven’t already done so (and that’s not a spoiler)!