Absolute Power

This was David Baldacci’s first novel, and he clearly got off to a flying start.

A professional burglar breaks into an opulent house near Washington DC. He has done his research, and confidently expects that the house will be empty, as the occupants are supposed to be on holiday in the Caribbean. However, while he is in the property, he hears people coming into the house, and as luck would have it, they come up to the master bedroom, where he had been clearing out the contents of a large walk-in safe. He withdraws into the safe, pulling it closed behind him. At this point he realises that the mirror on the door of the safe is two-way, and from his vantage point he watches proceeding unfold.

And those proceedings are noteworthy. The show more newcomers on the scene are the young wife of the octogenarian owner of the house and her new lover, who happens also to be the President of the United States. Things do not go to plan, and the woman ends up dead, shot by members of the President’s security detail, who, it seems, accompany him even on such trysts. After the President and his party withdraw, the burglar makes good his escape, stopping only to retrieve a vital piece of evidence of what has taken place.

Initially unaware that a witness has been on the scene, the President’s party return to the scene to clear away al traces, and become aware that a burglar had been there, and that evidence has gone missing. This leads to a massive clandestine operation to discover who is involved, and what they might plan to do with their knowledge.

This may all sound rather contrived, but that is more down to my clumsy synopsis. To the reader, it all comes across with great urgency and plausibility, and I was caught up right from the start. I believe that before becoming a full time writer, Baldacci was a solicitor, but his spare and clear prose, and his ability to unwind a compelling and gripping story suggest he might also have made an admirable journalist. show less

Luther Whitney is a burglar. He's fairly successful at it--though he has been jailed in the past on two occasions, he's been under the radar for the last 20 years. His vocation, however, has led to his being estranged from his beloved daughter Katy, who is now a prosecutor. Katy's former fiance has maintained a relationship with Luther, despite his now being engaged to a fabulously wealthy woman and on partnership track at the top D.C. law firm.
When the novel opens, Luther is undertaking a well-planned burglary. The wealthy owners of the targeted Virginia mansion left for Barbados in the morning, and Luther has a method to turn off their burglar alarm system. He is also aware of a fabulous stash hidden behind a full-length mirror in the show more master bedroom, his for the taking. All is going well until he hears a car pull into the driveway and before he knows it Luther is hiding in the room behind the mirror, which turns out to be a two-way mirror that allows him to see what's going on in the bedroom.
The young trophy wife of the mansion's owner is engaging in some rather rough sexual foreplay with a man who turns out to be the president of the United States. The rough foreplay gets out of hand, and she grabs a sharp letter opener to protect herself, aiming for the president, who calls out. His secret service protectors burst into the room guns drawn, and seeing the woman about to stab the president shoot her. The president's chief of staff takes over (the president is now passed out on the bed), and a coverup begins. The only problem is that in sanitizing the crime scene, they leave behind the letter opener, which has the president's blood, DNA, and fingerprints all over it. After they leave, Luther exits the room behind the mirror, takes the letter opener, and leaves.
Thereafter, the meat of the book: the chief of staff and secret service agents are trying to find the person who took the letter opener. Luther is trying to stay missing. And, the local police department is puzzling over the murder of the trophy wife with the professionally sanitized crime scene.
When I read The 6:20 Man earlier this year I found it to be unbelievably bad. However, other reviewers claimed that it was an outlier, and that Baldacci wrote many decent thrillers. So I decided to give him another chance, and I chose this one because I had seen the movie adapted from this book starring Gene Hackman many years ago. And the other reviewers were right. This is a much better book. Even though some parts of it were a bit over the top, these were the kinds of things I could accept in a well-constructed thriller, which this was. So overall, this was a satisfying read. Even though I enjoyed it, I'm probably done with Baldacci for now.
3 stars show less

I've watched the movie based on this book a number of times, and always greatly enjoyed it. And maybe that was the problem. I found myself bored with the book, most likely because I already knew what was going to happen. In a thriller, predictability is the kiss of death, but it's not the author's fault the movie was so well done. The novel itself is an easy read, and while the writing isn't stellar (Baldacci's later books are much better), it's not bad, either.

I was hooked from the first chapter and had a hard time putting this one down. Great writing, characters that quicky drug you into their orbit as they were all well drawn, with quirks and foibles just like real people. The storyline was compelling and kept me up well into the night. This was Baldacci's first novel, and he knocked it out of the park. This was a great political thriller, and I highly recommend it!

I hate to confess that I've never read David Baldacci's first book, Absolute Power. The book came out in 1996, and it's somewhat amazing how little things have changed in politics since that time. Russia and the Ukraine are still in the news with sleazy deals being made about/with them. Politicians are still crooked and while they might not murder people as Mr. Baldacci indicates, indirectly their policies are killing people in this country, on our borders, and around the world.
Enough preaching. This was a terrific thriller, a book that truly is hard to put down. There are so many twists and turns; I just couldn't foresee how this was going to go, though I usually consider myself pretty good at seeing the plot outlines. The characters show more are all engaging and interesting. No one is really black or white in their behavior, though some are lighter gray in behavior than those who are a darker gray. The story kept me involved right to the end - a really good book. (less) show less

Big ideas, credible and well drawn characters, a thrilling plot and over 500 pages for £0.74: what more can one ask?

I loved this part-thriller, part-police-procedural, part-court-room-drama (and all parts equally well done); this was my first Baldacci, and definitley won't be my last.

Five stars aren't enough!

I've enjoyed many David Baldacci books and decided to catch up on some of the ones I'd missed. Apparently, this was his first published book (or one of his first). I'm guessing the edition I got was a republish because there was a note from the author at the beginning explaining that when it was first written, criticism was that a US President couldn't possibly have a secret affair. Then President Clinton happened--and after that he would get criticism regarding profiting off those events (even though this was published before that came to light).

This book actually reminded me a bit more of Grisham than Baldacci. The central character is a lawyer (Jack)) working at a fancy law firm. At the beginning of the book, he is engaged to a show more socialite and she and her father engage him as their lawyer. Jack's contacted by a long-time friend (Luther) who's witnessed a murder committed by someone no one will believe did it.

What unfolds is a plot with many twists and turns. I'm not sure if the tone of the book is due to the time it was written, the fact that it is an early book of the author's, or just bad plotting/writing. The plot didn't seem as tight as most Baldacci books. show less