A child's birthday party ends in a kidnapping. Murder, mayhem, and secrets are soon to be revealed. The First Family of the USA is clearly involved, but just how deep does their involvement go? A former Secret Service agent turned PI is chasing her own demons, but puts her own concerns aside to follow up on the kidnapping along with her partner, another former Secret Service agent...

David Baldacci's thriller is gripping, non-stop action, slightly reminiscent of some of the early John Grisham novels but also clearly a different style of writing. Fast paced and very ingriguing, I found First Family very hard to put down. While this is the fourth book featuring the two former Secret Service agents, First Family stands on its own, it is quite readable as a stand-alone book.

Be warned, however, if you are looking for a book that's been carefully edited and free of typographical and grammatical errors, this isn't it. Without even looking for such errors, I found about five of them throughout the novel. Unlike other reviewers, I didn't get bored reading First Family, nor do I believe it precisely fits into the old formulaic kids' detective story format. And oh yes, those annoying typos? The story was so gripping I didn't have time to be annoyed at the editing - or lack thereof - but I do think such sloppy editing reflects badly on the publisher and on the author...

This review has been previously published on Dragonviews ( )

Predictible but interesting story. Fast paced. ( )

Ex CIA Agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are asked to meet Pam Dutton, who wants to hire them. When they arrive at her home, someone has just murdered her and kidnapped her child, Willa. Willa is the First Lady's niece and when the First Lady hears of the kidnapping she asks King and Maxwell to find the girl

Sam Quarry, a Viet Nam vet is behind the kidnapping. He sent his son and a man named Kurt to carry out his orders. When Pam Dutton fought back, Sam's son Daryl accidentally killed her. Quarry is very militaristic and wants to teach a lesson, so to pay for their mistake he kills Kurt.

While Sean and Michelle are investigating the kidnapping, Michelle gets a call that he mother has died. She goes to her parents home and finds that her mother had been killed. Now Michelle is investigating that murder in addition to Sean taking the lead on the kidnapping. This takes away from the main story and is irrelivant to the central plot.

Quarry has also kidnapped another woman, Diane Wohl and when the two kidnapped women meet they try to escape. They are unsuccesful the Quarry talks to Diane and tells her that she's actually Willa's mother, the child she put up for adoption twelve years ago. He also has a duaghter but she is in a coma and has been for years.

The two stories are told in separate chapters but still add confusion and make the kidnapping less suspenseful. King and Maxwell don't seem as sympathetic as they have and the story took a long time to get going. It is still enjoyable but not one of Baldacci's best. ( )

I have read most if not all of the Baldacci books and I think this may have been his best. I could not put it down. It kept me guessing. ( )

Another realy good book! ( )