Review by Booklist Review
Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, the former Secret Service agents from Baldacci's previous outing, Split Second (2003), are on the trail of a serial killer in this new novel. King and Maxwell have just gone into business together as private investigators when Michelle discovers the body of a young woman in the woods. The body was posed with a wristwatch stopped at 1:00. Two high-school students are the next victims; both have watches on their wrists--the boy's reads 2:00, the girl's 3:01. King and Maxwell aid the police while working on their own case: a burglary in the house of Remmy Battle, a wealthy, tough southerner whose husband, Bobby, lies in a coma at the local hospital. The prime suspect is Junior Deaver, whose fingerprints are found at the crime scene. But Junior swears he's innocent. The victim list keeps growing: a successful high-powered lawyer and then Bobby Battle himself. Soon King begins to suspect that the serial killer might not be choosing his victims at random, and he believes one of the murders is the work of a different killer. The plot doesn't hold together perfectly, even starting out a bit slow, but it recovers to build to an exciting finish. --Kristine Huntley Copyright 2004 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Stage and film actor Brick, an Audie Award-winning veteran of more than 150 audiobooks, is clearly a pro at interpreting the printed word. And Baldacci's exciting new thriller, in which Secret Service agents-turned-private detectives Sean King and Michelle Maxwell hunt a murderer copycatting infamous serial killers, gives him particularly powerful material to work with. To vocalize the sleuths' complementary but differing lifestyles, Brick adjusts his pace and pitch: faster and subtly higher for energetic "supernova" Maxwell, firmer and more authoritative for "steady glacier" King. For chapters dealing with the unidentified killer, he uses an unemotional, affectless narration that makes the graphic violence even more chilling. For other denizens of the book's rural Virginia location, the actor displays an assortment of Southern drawls, from the melodious, genteel tenor of a septuagenarian King-Maxwell client to the commanding Steel Magnolia tone of a powerful matriarch. Once the killer is unmasked, much of the novel's tension dissipates, and it never quite returns, even when the villain miraculously escapes to take care of unfinished business. Possibly sensing this problem, Brick revs up the narrative pace after the jailbreak, making sure listeners will be paying full attention for the final surprise. It's worth waiting for. Simultaneous release with the Warner hardcover (Forecasts, Sept. 20). (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
What's worse than a serial killer who numbers his murders by leaving a watch with each corpse? A copycat killer. Baldacci stalwarts Sean King and Michelle Maxwell have their work cut out for them. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A serial killer with a sense of history is the baddie in this latest from Baldacci, one of the reigning kings of potboilers (Split Second, 2003, etc.). He kills, he leaves clues, he flatters through imitation: Son of Sam, the San Francisco Zodiac killer, Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gracy, and so on down a sanguinary list of accredited members of the Monsters' Hall of Fame. Suddenly, the landscape of poor little Wrightsburg, Virginia, is littered with corpses, and ex-Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell have their hands full. That's because bewildered, beleaguered Chief of Police Todd Williams has turned to the newly minted private investigating firm of King and Maxwell for desperately needed (unofficial) help. Even these ratiocinative wizards, however, admit to puzzlement. "But I'm not getting this," says Michelle. "Why commit murders in similar styles to past killers as a copycat would and then write letters making it clear you're not them?" Excellent question, and it goes pretty much unanswered. Never mind--enter the battling Battles, a family with the requisite number of sins and secrets to qualify fully as hot southern Gothic and to prop up a plot in need. Bobby Battles, the patriarch, is bedridden, but Remmy, his wife, is one lively mischief-making steel magnolia. She's brought breaking-and-entering charges against decent local handyman Junior Deaver, who as a result languishes in the county jail. Convinced of his innocence, Junior's lawyer hires King & Maxwell to sniff around for exculpatory evidence. Well, will the two plot streams flow together? You betcha. Will the copycat-serial-killer at one point decide that King and Maxwell are just too clever to live? Inevitably. And when at last that CCSK's identity is revealed and his crimes explained (talkily and tediously), will readers be satisfied? Only the charitable among them. Lame but, like its predecessors, bound for bestsellerdom. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
