Stone Cold

David Baldacci, after quite a few stand-alone novels, started two series almost around the same time. One featured the Camel Club, a group of four conspiracy theorists who get pulled into some high-level political games in Washington while the other featured the duo of displaced secret agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, dealing with lesser-profile crimes. While the latter series caught my interest more initially, the former has definitely grown on me with its stronger novels. Stone Cold finds the Camel Club, now expanded with one more partner, dealing with an age-old secret that has come back to haunt one of their members. Fast-paced and suspenseful, it upholds Baldacci's reputation.

Harry Finn is working for a company used by the Department of Homeland Security to discover breaches in the security of high-profile locations. But he is also on a personal mission to take revenge on a particular group of people and pretty soon, this leads him to Oliver Stone, the leader of the Camel Club. Meanwhile, Jerry Bagger is in pursuit of Annabelle Conroy who swindled him of $40 million (in The Collectors) and Stone takes it upon himself to save her.

Baldacci's plots have always been rather outlandish and that continues here too. Whether Finn's actions(like infiltrating high-security locations) as part of his job or the book's key plot point itself, things are routinely far-fetched and frequently implausible. Many of the story's aspects, like government assassins who are now targeted by their own ex-employers, also give us a feeling of deja vu. Things are also a lot simpler than in earlier books by Baldacci. There are multiple tracks but they are more straightforward and there are fewer characters to keep track of. But as always, Baldacci never lets the pace flag. By having multiple tracks, narrating the story from the points of view of many characters and revealing the suspense one piece at a time, he makes sure that we keep turning the pages.

A novel's job is half done with interesting characters and the Camel Club's leader Oliver Stone is definitely one. Almost superhuman when it comes to skills he honed during his life as a soldier, Baldacci presents him as a secretive, charismatic man who looks out for his friends. His action scenes are terrific and even believable since he is a one-man army. Annabelle Conroy comes a close second with her brainy cons, spunk and sharp wits. While she spends most of the book running away from Bagger, she has her moments, especially when she gets back to planning a con with her dad. With these two getting the lion's share of the book, the other members of the club get the short shrift but they do have their moments. Harry Finn is the newcomer in Stone Cold and the combination of an interesting job, a fascinating history, the secret mission and his other life as a devoted husband and father make him eminently interesting too.

Authors who have a series with multiple protagonists(like James Patterson with his Women's Murder Club series) usually resort to a plot device to shock us and reinvigorate the series. Its disappointing that Baldacci too resorts to this, especially since it is quite early in the series. The plot point does lead to an exhilaratingly visceral scene with Oliver Stone but still feels a bit needless. Another frustrating plot point used by authors(James Patterson is guilty of this too, especially lately) is the open-ended finish where the bad guys live to see another book. But Baldacci doesn't do this. The book looks to be headed that way but we get closure and in a very satisfying way that makes us close the book with a smile.