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Saturday, August 17, 2013

The Camel Club by David Baldacci


I needed to read an ebook for our library summer reading club and I picked this one basically cause it was the first one that showed up that I had any interest in. I had never read anything by Baldacci but had seen his books in stores many times, so figured I'd give one a try.  I don't like ebooks but for the sake of the reading club I figured I'd give it another try.

The story starts with a murder in DC and a plot against the the President of the United States. The murder is seen by members of the Camel Club - 4 guys from different backgrounds who are all conspiracy theorists.  As is sometimes the case, sometimes the truth is so crazy it has to be true.  They are a motley crew - Oliver Stone (obviously a pseudonym) is the leader of the bunch.  He works as the caretaker of a cemetery but spends most of his time protesting in front of the White House.  The other members a former Viet Nam vet, a librarian in the archives of the Library of Congress, and a hacker with severe OCD who used to work in intelligence until his OCD got in the way of job performance. 

Alex Ford and Jackie Simpson are the Secret Service agents assigned to the case.   Alex is the veteran, Jackie is his relatively new partner who has Washington connections.  I'd say it was kind of Tom Clancy Light. Like Clancy there are lots of subplots that don't seem connected at first but of course all come together in the end.  I call it light because when explosives or nuclear submarines are described it's in a fairly brief paragraph not the usual pages and pages intricate details of Clancy.  

I wasn't all that happy with the ending.  While the what, who and how were explained, the why wasn't. I still don't understand the motive of the person behind the plot against the President.  Not sure if that's the fault of the author, the fact that I have a cold and my brain was a little foggy or the fact that I read it as an ebook.  If it were a regular book I would flip back through it and reread parts to try and make sense of it all, but that's harder to do with an ebook.  

I would be willing to try another book by this author at some point but I'm not in any hurry to do so.

Besides I just got a shipment from Amazon and based on recommendations from friends I've got a bunch of new books to read.  Now the trouble is deciding which one to read first.....


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