I read this book in two days. It is what I call a “Non-stop book” - a book that once you pick it up you have to read non-stop. There is just no way you can`t do so. The story is intriguing, the plot exciting, the plan keeps you on your toes and the writer knows how to keep the reader going - and not want to stop as well!
The whole context of the story is very different from what you get in a normal novel and the plot was well thought out and unique which I am sure is one of the reasons the author sold so many copies of the book making his book (and him as well) into a great success.
Go for it and get a copy yourself!
Book Review:
Dick Pender, a former employee in the White House press office, is an expert in perception management. His motto is: "Why waste time trying to discover the truth, when you can so easily create it?" In David Baldacci's The Whole Truth, some very influential people pay Pender big bucks to bury inconvenient secrets and manipulate public opinion, using cleverly crafted lies packaged for maximum media impact. Pender's most important client is Machiavellian billionaire Nicholas Creel, the head of the world's largest defense conglomerate, Ares Corporation. Although Creel has had a series of trophy wives and owns a four-hundred foot yacht, he is less interested in acquiring more wealth than he is in pitting the great superpowers against one another. This would generate a huge arms race and, theoretically, create a stand-off that would prevent any one superpower from subjugating the others. For Creel, "a peace based on lurking terror was the best kind of all."
Baldacci's hero is Shaw, a globe-trotting troubleshooter for a shadowy international law-enforcement organization, "sort of like Interpol on steroids." He is a strong and physically imposing man whose knowledge of surveillance, hand-to-hand combat, and weaponry makes him an extremely valuable asset. His acting ability, uncanny intuition, courage, and coolness under pressure have helped him prevail in a number of dangerous situations. On any given day, Shaw's quarry might include ruthless drug dealers, bloodthirsty terrorists, or vicious neo-Nazis, none of whom would be pleased to discover that he has deceived them. Although Shaw dreams of retiring and living a sedate life with his beautiful and brilliant girlfriend, German-born Anna Fischer, his boss has him in a stranglehold from which he cannot easily break free.
The female heroine is award-winning investigative reporter Katie James. As a result of a traumatic experience in Afghanistan, she became an alcoholic who has been relegated to writing obits, the graveyard of journalism. Through happenstance, Katie meets Shaw, and both narrowly escape with their lives during a run-in with some murderous thugs in Scotland. When an unexpected tragedy sends an enraged Shaw on a mission of revenge, Katie decides to risk her life in order to help him and, in the process, pursue the biggest story of her career.
The Whole Truth is marred by cliché-ridden dialogue and cartoonish villains who utter such lines as: "I didn't bring you here for a lecture. I brought you here to die." The story is overly complicated and melodramatic, and the author repeatedly hammers home his heavy-handed message that unscrupulous individuals and governments intentionally mislead us by disseminating false information. Baldacci does generate a fair amount of suspense, but his pedestrian writing, preposterous plot, and one-dimensional characters may limit the book's appeal to adrenaline junkies and fans of escapist thrillers.
