A Minute to Midnight (An Atlee Pine Thriller (2)) (edition 2019)

This was a fantastic book. I love the way that Baldacci is maturing the Atlee Pine character and I can't wait for the next title. ( )

Title: A Minute to Midnight (An Atlee Pine Thriller #2)
Author: David Baldacci
Pages: 432
Year: 2019
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars.
I was hooked on the series with the first book titled, A Long Road to Mercy. It is in these pages where readers meet an FBI Special Agent named Atlee Pine, and she sure is a spitfire! Atlee’s hard work, drive, and past all come together, which make her one of the best of the best! Atlee is known to be an agent who can take care of herself and is a very intelligent woman. Atlee is the lone agent posted in the Grand Canyon. Her assistant, Carol Blum, is more than what she appears to be.
In the sequel to Long Road to Mercy, Atlee must face her past as it affects her ability to do her job. Atlee travels back to Georgia along with her assistant to begin looking into her missing sister’s case, and why Atlee was left injured but alive. What Atlee doesn’t count on is becoming entangled in more unsolved cases in her small town, her past in the FBI, and a surprising ending that will leaving you wanting more!
I enjoyed A Long Rode to Mercy, but this novel was even better! The mystery that is woven is really engaging and the ending was surprising! I hope the author has plans to write more Atlee Pine Thrillers. The book doesn’t have sex in it, just a great and involved tale that will keep readers entertained for hours. When the author tells of Atlee’s growing up years and starts casting doubt about who her parents really were, and what they might have been involved in, I could read fast enough.
The other character I enjoyed was Carol Blum, Atlee’s assistant. There is more to her than I originally understood from the first book. This woman has a past that makes her a wonderful woman who helps Atlee through some very hard times when she relieves her childhood nightmare. I wonder if the author has plans to reveal more of Carol and how she developed into a woman who can find out anything in the FBI with just a phone call or two!
Read and enjoy A Long Road to Mercy and A Minute to Midnight while we wait and see if there is yet a third book that might be released in the fall of 2020 or sooner!
Note: The opinions shared in this review are solely my responsibility. ( )

Return to Form Somewhat
Review of the Audible Audio audiobook edition (2019)

After last year's fantastically unrealistic Long Road to Mercy, this 2nd entry in the Atlee Pine series returns to a somewhat more conventional thriller themes. Conventional for Baldacci at least: incredible coincidences abound and at one point a character says something like: "what you've experienced in the last 24 hours wouldn't happen to most people in an entire lifetime." That's an understatement. Still, this was a reasonable thriller with some unexpected twists.

The narrations by Brittany Pressley (all female voices) and Kyf Brewer (all male voices) were excellent throughout. Brewer raised my suspicions with his Christian Bale-like "I'm Batman1" rasp for one of the FBI agents, but it was just a way to expand his voice cast.

Trivia
An Estonian is featured somewhat in the book (can't say more without a spoiler). No particular Estonian research was involved, but the name was realistic at least: Hanna Rebane. ( )