Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10705 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Sunday Times
'Baldacci's plotting, as ever, is formidably accomplished'

Synopsis
Following their collaboration in "Split Second", ex-Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell have gone into partnership and are investigating the robbery of some secret documents at the residence of the incredibly wealthy Battle family. It seems like a straightforward case of domestic burglary, but soon they begin to suspect links to larger, more terrifying events now shaking the prosperous town of Writghtsburg ...The unidentified corpse of an attractive young woman turns up in the woods; two high school kids, one shot in the back, the other in the face, are found dead in their car; a successful lawyer is discovered stabbed to death in her own home. A serial killer is on the loose. The murderer kills in the manner of famous killers of the past but takes care to leave a stopped watch at the scene of each crime - corresponding to the victim's position on his hit list. As the killing spree escalates it seems that the fractured Battle family are somehow involved and Maxwell and King suddenly find themselves racing to solve an intricate puzzle, one that is full of tantalizing clues but barren of solid evidence, and one that is leaving even the FBI confounded.

And all the while, the body count is rising ...

Customer Reviews

A gruesome and entertaining follow up
The second book in the series featuring ex-Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell certainly doesn't hold back on the vicious murder scale - and it is an entertaining read to boot.

The killer's identity becomes fairly obvious after about three-quarters of the book, but up until then, Baldacci does a good job of shrouding him in secrecy and making him every bit as unnerving and brutal as you expect from a good thriller.

It's a fairly standard "small town shaken by killing spree" backdrop, but the plot zips along at a good pace and Baldacci does a nice job of tying all the various strands together as the story nears its end.

King and Maxwell again prove likeable characters, as they track down the murderer killing people in similar fashion to some of the world's most famous serial killers, and you could pick this book up without having read their first outing, in Split Second.

It's a good choice for any Baldacci fan, or just for someone who enjoys crime thrillers. It's also not a bad introduction into what Baldacci can offer, for first-time readers of his.

The Second Book in the Sean King and Michelle Maxwell Series


David Baldacci attended law school at the University of Virginia, and went on to work as a trial lawyer, and later as a corporate lawyer, in Washington, D.C. He is now a full-time writer whose best selling novels include Absolute Power, Total Control, The Winner, The Simple Truth and Saving Faith. He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.

This is a book about a deranged serial killer (is there any other kind?). The killer taunts the police and their resources by leaving watches on the victims. The watches are set to the hour corresponding to the victims position on his hit list. Even more barbaric the killer strives to reconstruct and replicate notorious murders from the past, trying to improve upon them by meticulous attention to detail.

Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are already investigating another crime, but when they are assigned to help in the serial killer case, they soon begin to realise that the two cases may well be connected. To muddy the waters even further another killer surfaces and this one is imitating the murders carried out by the first . . .

So-so
This is the tale of a serial killer who goes about his work with thought and style but when he's not quite as free to murder who, where and when he originally planned to, the sense of intrigue fades away and it takes much of the interest in the story with it. It's a rather stereotypical scenario involving an extremely wealthy family full of jealousies, tragedies and divided loyalties and enough potential suspects in the shapes of kingpins and widows, sons and daughters, in-laws and various hangers-on to satisfy those who enjoy working out who did it before the inevitable revelation. It's even possible that the butler did it, if you want a taste of the corniness, but for me the only thing I wanted to happen was to reach the end of the story, all 100+ chapters of it and probably 50 too many.

The goodies, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, are a pair of former government agents now working together as male/female partners in a small P.I. firm in a small Virginia town. They have appeared together previously in SPLIT SECOND, but one of the biggest flaws in the novel reviewed here is that they make a pretty uninteresting couple, certainly neither of them possesses the charisma or personality to carry a series and probably not even a stand-alone.

It's all a bit ho-hum in the end, a by-the-numbers murder mystery which might have been compelling 20 years ago but with so much crime fiction available today it doesn't really stack up against the best of the competition. It's OK but it's nothing special and doesn't break any new ground or old barriers. Something to pass the time on a long-haul flight perhaps, but not a contemporary crime classic by any stretch of the imagination - particularly if the genre of crime fiction is your favourite and you read a lot of it regularly.