A Minute to Midnight

I found this instalment of the Atlee Pine series so much better than the first. In "A Minute to Midnight", Atlee, along with her very capable assistant, Carol Blum, returns to Atlee's hometown in search of answers to Mercy's abduction when she was a child. As Atlee probes the past she discovers shocking secrets which leave her questioning everything she thought she knew about her family. Added to the mix, a number of murders occur in the usually quiet town of Andersonville. They can't be a coincidence, can they?

I found the first novel, "A Long Way to Mercy", a little flat and slow but "A Minute to Midnight" made up for it. This novel was packed with action and suspense, and solid characters. I especially liked Carol. She is a mother of show more six and a grandmother to many. She is switched on, nurturing and kind and she brought humour to the novel and provided stability for Atlee. Between them, they make a formidable team!

Atlee is a woman you wouldn't want to mess with. She is prickly, untrusting and gets things done - her way. She is also a smart investigator and isn't afraid to mix it with the bad guys. I was invested in her quest to find the truth and, with the book ending the way it did, I am now off to find "Daylight." A compulsive, entertaining read. show less

FBI Agent Atlee Pine returns to Andersonville, Georgia in search of answers about the kidnapping of her twin sister, Mercy, some thirty years earlier. But a serial killer interrupts her investigation, causing Atlee to divide her time between her own private investigation and the hunt for the serial killer.

Accompanied by her assistant, Carol Blum, Atlee digs into the past where the secrets are plentiful and danger lurks around every corner. Will Atlee find the answers she seeks; will she finally know what happened to Mercy?

Continuing the story begun in “Long Road to Mercy,” Atlee’s backstory slowly emerges while she splits her time between her personal search and the hunt for the serial killer. Strong characters, well-defined and show more believable, keep the story moving while surprising reveals change everything that the readers think they know.

The connection between the twin sisters is one of the strong points of the story; Atlee’s fierce drive to find the answers, to have closure about what happened to her twin sister is both realistic and heartrending. The captivating plot, complex and intriguing, keeps the pages turning to a conclusion readers simply will not see coming.

“A Minute to Midnight” works as a stand-alone since there is sufficient backstory for readers new to the series [but reading “Long Road to Mercy” is highly recommended]. And, although there is a satisfactory conclusion for the main plot, there are still questions regarding Mercy and readers are sure to be looking forward to Atlee’s next adventure as her search for Mercy continues.

Highly recommended. show less

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 show more 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. show less

As the story opens, FBI agent Atlee Pine, six-foot-two and able to bench press 500 pounds, visits incarcerated serial killer Daniel James Tor. She suspects him as the man who kidnapped her twin sister and fractured her own skull 30 years earlier. He refuses to give her any help.

Frustrated, Pine leaves and immediately responds to an Amber Alert. Atlee tracks the pedophile who has seized a ten-year-old girl, and once she has the man overpowered, she continues to beat him, fracturing his skull.

Instead of firing or suspending Pine, her supervisor tells her to go back to Georgia and re-examine the disappearance of her twin thirty years earlier and try to get her life back on track.

Soon after she arrives, bodies begin appearing in her show more hometown. Is it a coincidence that as soon as she shows up a serial killer begins working? Or is it somehow improbably tied to the events of thirty years ago? Atlee starts remembering more details about her long-forgotten past, things that turn her investigation into a whole new direction. At some point, the two stories do intersect, and they reveal even more of the past.

There is something that prevents me from connecting with this character, but her relationship with Carol remains a highlight for me. Carol is the one with whom Atlee shares everything first, and who is her sounding board as she investigates her family’s past.

While not my favorite Baldacci series, events toward the end of the book have me almost eagerly anticipating the next book in the series, coming out in November.

1145 show less

Special Agent Attle Pine is driving herself home after visiting the renowned monster Danial Jame Tor at ADX Florence, America’s only supermax federal prison. She has her radio tuned to the police bands when an amber alert is put out and Pine responds as she is the closet of any law enforcement officers in Colorado at that moment. After seeing and following the perpetrator Pine manages to corner him. While she manages to save the child, she may have gone slightly over the top with the perpetrator. When she gets backs to Shattered Rock in Arizona, she is told to take some time off go and put her feet up and this was her first and last warning.

Pine took with her Blum her assistant as she headed towards the town of Andersonville, Georgia show more where she had lived thirty years prior. She noticed that very little had changed over the years other than shouting louder about the civil war and the confederate prison and visitor’s centre. Pine and Blum though had other things on their minds. When Pine visited her former home, it was in a sorry state looking on the verge of collapse. There is a new resident squatting on the property, Cy Tanner, who allows Pine to inspect her old bedroom from where her sister Mercy was taken, and she had received a head injury.

As Pine tries to uncover the truth from her past, she only creates more questions and the few people who do remember are as helpful as they can be. While she is in Andersonville dead bodies do start turning up and she assists the local police department. Her vocation in Andersonville becomes a roller coaster of a ride of murder and some very long buried secrets and plenty of lies. While the cases have raised plenty of questions the answers seem further away than before. Even when the FBI send agent Decker to assist with the ongoing investigations in Andersonville.

There are some wonderful twists in this thriller where Baldacci convinces you of one thing then by a sleight of hand (or pen) you get something completely different. While Atlee Pine takes some serious blows the reader cannot help but have sympathy with her and hope she succeeds in trying to find her sister. show less

Book on CD read by Brittany Pressley and Kyf Brewer


Book 2 in the Atlee Pine mystery series has the FBI agent forced to take a “vacation” after she nearly beats a child-kidnaper to death. Of course, her faithful assistant, Carol, comes along as the two of them head back to Andersonville Georgia, where Pine’s family lived when her twin sister, Mercy, was abducted. Looking for anyone who might remember what happened when she was just six years old, she comes across a number of people who are clearly hiding something. And to further complicate matters, there’s a serial murderer at work.

Well, this got complicated quickly. It’s not enough that she’s trying to unravel the mystery of her family and what happened those many years show more ago, but now she has to deal with a pretty twisted individual whose killing spree shows no signs of stopping. Are the new murders tied to Atlee’s family history? Can she put aside her history with agent Eddie Laredo, with whom she once worked in the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, and who is assigned to work this case.

Baldacci certainly knows how to craft a compelling page-turner: short sentences, short chapters, and action that keeps the characters and the reader on their toes. It’s fast-paced and compelling, but there were several times when I thought he stretched credulity a bit too far. I did get surprised by the reveal (or at least part of it).

Atlee’s personal story, however, cannot be wrapped up just yet … there has to be at least one more episode. (And, in fact, book three in the series is scheduled to release this November.)

Brittany Pressley and Kyf Brewer narrate the audio version, with Pressley taking the main narration and all female character voices, and Brewer voicing all the male characters. This is a very effective approach. show less

A Minute to Midnight by David Baldacci is a 2019 Grand Central publication.


Atlee Pine returns to her childhood home searching for answers about her twin sister’s disappearance when they were children. The small town seems both welcoming and wary of Atlee and her questions.

Things get dicey when she discovers the body of woman wearing a wedding veil. In short order, another murder takes place. Is there a serial killer on the loose? Is there a connection to Atlee or her sister?

The first book in this series was a bit flat, in my opinion. Baldacci can write much better than that- but I had received an ARC of the third book in the Pine series, so I felt obligated to continue. I’m happy to say the series was definitely worth a second show more glance!!

This second book more than makes up for the lackluster series starter. Great pacing, plenty of action, and suspense, plus some surprise developments that has me eagerly anticipating book three!!

4 stars show less