Reviews

I can’t help but wonder if this was Baldacci’s attempt to use ChatGPT to write a book. It’s simply doesn’t have the same feel as his earlier work.

I listened to the audiobook format of this title, and I’m glad I did, as the number of times I was rolling my eyes would have really interrupted reading a print version. Generally speaking, I enjoy David Baldacci books - and have for decades. This is by and far the worst one I’ve read. Travis Devine is an interesting character with a backstory that I think has a lot of potential, but this book just felt incredibly stilted and the supporting characters totally one-dimensional. Some of the dialogue made me physically cringe.Normally, I have no problem with suspending my disbelief for a good book. This title didn’t ask me to suspend it, but to totally eliminate it. Other reviewers have mentioned the plot, so I’m just focusing on how I felt reading it. For me at least, it was a swing and a miss. It’s not a total one star, but neither is it 2. Which is why goodreads needs fractional ratings (or at least 10 total) - this would be around 1.5/5 for me, so I’ll round up to 2 (3/10).

On a totally separate note, I drove my aunt home and the book started playing. She asked what it was and when I said “the 6:20 man”, she let me know that started it but DNF for much the same reason as me. I suppose I was just invested in it and didn’t want that time to be wasted (sunk cost fallacy), plus I didn’t want to go to the trouble finding another book to listen to for when I was driving around doing errands… if it had been a physical book, I would’ve put it down then picked up something else within the first 10 chapters.

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2.0

I only made it all the way through this because I'd paid for the audiobook. If I'd just bought the paperback it'd have been a dnf.

From the blurb, I was expecting a miltary adventure/thriller type book, but it's really closer to the whodunit genre.

My main issue is that the main character is an ex-soldier, but talks to people as if he's a police detective - nearly every narrative is him asking someone blunt questions. It's jarringly unrealistic - people would just tell him to FO, not answer the constant interrogation of some random guy. This even extends to his interactions with the police, with him asking them as many or more questions than they ask him.

But in this world, everyone answers his interrogations - that includes the police giving him info about their investigation, doctors happily passing on private medical information about other people, families airing their deepest secrets, etc. It's ludicrous.

Another annoyance is that the same plot lines seem to get repeated over and over in the narratives. He discusses the exact same, largely irrelevant, points with multiple characters - that quickly gets boring.

My final grievance is that the ending is way too fractured. It introduces new plotlines/character motivations that haven't even been hinted at until the final few pages. So many fantastical plot twists are then shoe-horned in to the final 5% of the book, that it comes across as unreal. It becomes apparent that pretty much all of the investigating that he did in the previous 95% of the book was fruitless; with reality only revealed because the antagonists each decide to, scooby-doo pesky-kids style, go through 180 degree character transformations, then explain in great depth what they had done and their motivations.

Meh...