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A review by jacki_f
The Escape by David Baldacci
2.0
There are times in my reading life when I wish I had a time travel machine. If I did, I would go back four days in time and never start reading this idiotic book.
I am not a great fan of Baldacci's formulaic writing style, but I did enjoy Zero Day - the first book featuring Special Agent Jack Puller. It read like a shameless Lee Child rip off, but was no less enjoyable for that. Puller reappeared in The Forgotten, this time investigating the death of his aunt. Again, the writing was taut, the suspense built over the course of the book and it was a more than passable beach read.
The Escape is an entirely different style of book. It doesn't feel like it was written by the same person as the first two books in the series, though it feels very similar in style to the woeful "True Blue" churned out by the Baldacci factory in 2009. (If you share my theory that there are in fact several writers who assist Mr Baldacci, this would make perfect sense). All traces to Lee Child are gone, and instead we have wooden characters who speak in explanations, who are unable to pick up on obvious clues but can wrap their heads round complex and unlikely scenarios in seconds and who occasionally get tears in their eyes in lieu of feelings.
The book actually starts quite well, with John Puller's brother Robert breaking out of a maximum security prison. Puller is asked to investigate his brother's disappearance, presumably because the authorities hope that his brother will attempt to contact him. However as Puller starts to look into the case, he finds out things about his brother's conviction that he didn't previously know and he begins to wonder whether there is more to the break out than meets the eye.
So the first third of the book has a reasonable degree of suspense but then it just goes silly and proceeds to get sillier by the page as the coincidences fly thick and fast, the body count mounts and character motivations get flimsier than a square of cheap toilet paper. By the end of the book I simply did not care about any of these people and I all I know is that I don't want to read another Baldacci book as long as I live.
I am not a great fan of Baldacci's formulaic writing style, but I did enjoy Zero Day - the first book featuring Special Agent Jack Puller. It read like a shameless Lee Child rip off, but was no less enjoyable for that. Puller reappeared in The Forgotten, this time investigating the death of his aunt. Again, the writing was taut, the suspense built over the course of the book and it was a more than passable beach read.
The Escape is an entirely different style of book. It doesn't feel like it was written by the same person as the first two books in the series, though it feels very similar in style to the woeful "True Blue" churned out by the Baldacci factory in 2009. (If you share my theory that there are in fact several writers who assist Mr Baldacci, this would make perfect sense). All traces to Lee Child are gone, and instead we have wooden characters who speak in explanations, who are unable to pick up on obvious clues but can wrap their heads round complex and unlikely scenarios in seconds and who occasionally get tears in their eyes in lieu of feelings.
The book actually starts quite well, with John Puller's brother Robert breaking out of a maximum security prison. Puller is asked to investigate his brother's disappearance, presumably because the authorities hope that his brother will attempt to contact him. However as Puller starts to look into the case, he finds out things about his brother's conviction that he didn't previously know and he begins to wonder whether there is more to the break out than meets the eye.
So the first third of the book has a reasonable degree of suspense but then it just goes silly and proceeds to get sillier by the page as the coincidences fly thick and fast, the body count mounts and character motivations get flimsier than a square of cheap toilet paper. By the end of the book I simply did not care about any of these people and I all I know is that I don't want to read another Baldacci book as long as I live.