Absolute Power (original 1996; edition 1996)

Luther Whitney is a thief with a conscience. He's robbing the home of a wealthy family in Washington, D.C. when the woman of the house returns. Luther hides in the closet and can see what is happening.

The woman is with her lover and the sex begins to get rough. The man cannot perform due to his intoxication and when the woman ridicules him, there is a struggle. She picks up a letter opener and as she approaches the man, two other men break into the room. When the Secret Service men see she's about to stab the President, they shoot and kill her.

They attempt to sanatize the room but overlook the letter opener which Luther noticed, the President had touched so has his prints on it. Luther takes this and escapes.

The Secret Service realize they don't have the letter opener and they rush back to the room to get it and see it's gone.

David Baldacci ratches up the mood as the Secret Service tries to cover their tracks and Luther attempts to set something in motion that will expose the President's hand in the murder and the political corruption.

We follow the hunted and await the death knell as the realistic characters collide in their attempt to hide, or for others, to unearth the truth. ( )

A professional burglar is in the process of burgling a rich man's house when in walk the man's wife and the President of United States. What follows is a murder and a cat and mouse chase.

Thrillers like these will always keep you turning the pages. Pure and simple entertainment. ( )

As popular thrillers go, this isn't badly written. Baldacci is a better writer judging from what I've read than a James Patterson or Dan Brown. Not high praise--just means he's not obviously eye-bleeding, but this is still reads as a generic pot-boiler. Nevertheless even Brown and Patterson have held me to the end of a couple of their books. Baldacci didn't here.

The thing is, I couldn't wrap my head around the basic premise. A cat burglar, Luther Whitney, is trapped in a vault with a one-way mirror when people unexpectedly arrive at a mansion he was robbing. Two people enter the bedroom--and one is the charismatic president of the United States, Alan J. Richmond. Whitney watches as the married president begins to have sex with a woman not his wife. Sex that turns into an assault that turns into an attack on the president that ends with his calling for help bringing in two Secret Service agents who shoot and kill the woman. Do they call the police in? No, both agents participate in a cover up.

And you know what? I don't buy it. Do I buy the Secret Service would kill to protect the life of the United States President. Sure. It's their job. Do I buy an American president could be involved in an extra-marital affair and the Secret Service stays silent? Sure. They're supposed to keep the president's private life private. Do I buy his Chief of Staff and other political hangers on might cover up anything including murder? Sure. Just look at recent history and headlines about American presidents and candidates and aspirants to the office such as President Richard Nixon, President Bill Clinton, Presidential candidate John Edwards and president wannabe and ex-governor Eliot Spitzer. But Secret Service agents aren't political hacks. They don't work for the man, they work for the office. They'll take a bullet for the president--they train to make it muscle memory. But would they risk covering up a killing? Not just one, but two on the scene? (And would they really not check out every single place a potential assassin could be hiding like that vault?) Well, a better writer might have sold me on it, but as a premise for what's otherwise routine potboiler? Well, two hours watching the movie with a Clint Eastwood is one thing. But I didn't want to devote over 12 hours to a book where the premise from the start just struck me as screwy and the writing was less than stellar. ( )

a good read ( )

The rare cases where the movie was better than the book... ( )