Welcome to 2008

It is the start of a new year, and I am pledging to make a few changes in my life. I want to do a better job of keeping this blog updated for a start. I would also like to read fewer books (yes, I really said that!), and I would like to read better quality books. I love my junk books, but, like junk food, I need in indulge in fewer of them. I've already got seven books under my belt for the new year but only one I feel the need to comment on.

David Baldacci's books are fun, but I must say that I have especially enjoyed his "Camel Club" series. In 2005 Baldacci wrote The Camel Club about a group of 4 Washington D.C. misfits who witness a murder and are drawn into political intrigue. The suspense is well written, and the story is great, but it is the group of characters that make this more than your average thriller. Caleb Shaw the librarian, Milton Farb the computer genius, Reuben Rhodes the blue-collar worker and Viet Nam vet, and "Oliver Stone" the man with no past make a mismatched group, whose stated goal is to learn the truth. Together with Secret Service Agent Alex Ford, they find out the truth in their own way.

Baldacci followed The Camel Club with The Collectors (2006) in which we meet Annabelle Conroy, a con artist with a vendetta who becomes an honorary member of the Camel Club. In 2007 he published Stone Cold, which I just finished. Stone Cold features two main stories; Annabelle has conned her mother's murderer, casino owner Jerry Bagger, out of 40 million dollars, and he will stop at nothing to get it back. In the second story, people from Oliver's past are turning up dead, and the killer will turn to focus on Oliver next. His secrets will need be unburied in order to have a chance to save himself.

Baldacci is great at creating surprising characters. The calculating killer in this book considers himself a loving family man who is a great father. Oliver carries a sign in Washington demanding the truth, but his personal secrets are the deepest of all. I truly enjoy these characters and believe these books to be superior political suspense stories. On the other hand, I just read Baldacci's other most recent book Simple Genius and did not care for it much. To me there is a difference between suspending belief a little for a story and something being absolutely ridiculous. The Camel Club stories are worth suspending some belief for.