Walk the Wire

Okay. This is my "jump the shark" Memory Man book. Reading back over my previous reviews I can see that I was not all that impressed, but could get through them. This one is just plain awful. Decker is pretty much an empty suit, Will Robie and his partner swoop in from their separate series and essentially kick butt and take names, blow up everything in sight and kill bad guys by the dozens every time Decker gets himself in trouble. Robie is basically 007, MacGyver, and Rambo all in one. When they get captured by the last remaining bad guy and chained in the basement (who knows why), Robie has lock picks in his belt and plastic explosives and detonators in the heel of his shoe. Groan. And don't get me started on Decker's -- sidekick? show more Partner? Her only contribution to the story is to tag around after him like a 4-year-old tugging on his shirttail saying Why are we going here? Why are we talking to them? What are we doing this for? Oh you're so difficult, Amos! Gag me!!!!! This is the last Memory Man book I will ever read. I really had to force myself to grind through it--it was torture. I should have quit the first or second time I wanted to. show less

It's so difficult for me to believe that this book is getting so many negative reviews! Some reviewers are upset that this book didn't have enough of Amoses 'quirks' and was just a mystery. Well, I hate to say this, but our characters have to grow, and Amos is growing-it may not be in a direction you want him to go in, but that is the author's choice. As far as some complaints on the number of characters and the killings -I, too, was a bit discombobulated by that number of deaths, but by the time I got to the end, I could see just why there had to be so many.

I loved the fact that this book included characters from Mr. Baldacci's other series, which encourages me to go red that series! I now have something to look forward to until the show more next Decker book comes out.

I loved the fact that this book dealt with a national crisis as well as a plain old murder. I learned a lot about Fracking and enjoyed every minute of it. If this was a political problem for some -well, so be it.

I loved how the author kept me guessing and kept me on the edge of my seat because of the suspense.

In my opinion, this was a terrific addition to the series. show less

David Baldacci is one of my favorite authors but the poor man...for some reason...can't seem to count past 6. He creates these great characters and sets them about their jobs and makes we the reader, care about them and really like them...then when we get to the 5th or 6th book in the series...there is no more. I was pleasantly surprised when Will Robie and Jessica Reel showed up to help Amos and Alex. I see that they show up again in the 2014 novella in the Camel Club series..."Bullseye". This book..."Walk The Wire", had an interesting and way different plot than the others in this series. Along with the murders...and there were a lot of them for such a small town...we have a large government conspiracy that threatened to take the show more entire little town off the map. There was a lot of information about fracking that most folks will gladly skip over. The book took too long to get to what most of us read this series for...to watch Amos use that amazing memory of his and catch the bad guy, Rest in peace Amos Decker...maybe you'll get to star in another series. show less

FBI agents Amos Decker and Alex Jamison are went to North Dakota to investigate a murder. While the killing method was quite unusual–the someone had done an autopsy on her before the body was found–they were not told why the FBI was involved in the case. Their job was to find the killer.
Identifying the victim seemed rather standard initially. But they quickly learn there was a lot more about her than was obvious and there were no clues as to who she really was.
Soon there were more murders and Decker and Jamison try to find the links among them, if there are any. As usual in these stories, there are a lot of people trying to kill Decker. Except for the first one, none of them are graphic.
The location of the murders plays an show more important role in the story. London, North Dakota, a boom town, was the site of major fracking operations, a religious community, and a former US Air Force Radar station that tracked missiles and space junk. Two men own most of the town. Their children and the primary policeman had been school friends but the men were competitors.
One of the people Amos meets almost immediately is his brother-in-law, soon to be ex-brother-in-law. He has not had much contact with his family since the deaths of his wife and daughter and didn’t know about what had been going on with them over the years.
Later on, he gets an unexpected ally, one that Baldacci’s fans know but whom Amos hadn’t yet met.
There are a couple clues regarding the killer, but they are subtle and easy to miss.
The book provides a lot of information about fracking, the industry that brought people and money to London. The process has several effects on an area: Saltwater waste, often dumped into the wells, permanently burns the soil to nothing so no crops can ever grow there again. It takes anywhere from one to five million gallons of fresh water to frack a single well. And every month, flares burn off enough gas to fuel 4 million homes. The book doesn’t mention the earthquakes often caused by the fracking.
Tidbit: A dictator doesn’t need supporters, he just needs followers.
WALK THE WIRE has several intertwining story lines and is fast moving. The characters interactions are somewhat unbelievable at times but typical for the genre and caring. show less

So Many Conspiracies, That Even Amos Decker Needs Extra Help
Review of the Grand Central Publishing audiobook (April 2020) released simultaneously with the hardcover edition

Although I still think Amos Decker's vaunted hyperthymesia (perfect memory recall) abilities are woefully underutilized in this continuing series, this was one of the better adventures to date. It had the now standard in-joke of Decker "forgetting" something as well. The main twist here is the appearance of a wider spectrum of David Baldacci characters, about which it would be a spoiler to say anything further.

Veteran Baldacci narrators Kyf Brewer and Orlagh Cassidy gave excellent voice performances throughout, especially so in the case of the extended cast.

Walk The Wire, David Baldacci, author; Kyf Brewer, Orlagh Cassidy, narrators
The best part of this book, for me, was its audio presentation. The plot was thin requiring several themes to create the story. However, the narrators portrayed each character so well that it was easy to know who was speaking at any given time. That is a feat worth praising.
Jamison and Decker fly out to London, North Dakota, a town that is best known for its fracking industry. In addition, there is a community there which is run by the Anabaptists, a religious sect similar to the Amish, but they live with modern technology. Adjacent to their community, there is a small classified military installation that used to be far larger, occupying the land the community show more and oil industry now does.
When the body of a woman, murdered and brutally dissected, is discovered, the FBI is sent to investigate, but no one, not even Jamison or Decker understand why they have been called in to investigate this murder. Two families basically own London. One is the McClellans and one is the Dawsons. One was in the oil business and the other in the greater development of London. Each family in the story has secrets and each is scarred by them. It is through these interrelationships, however, that the story develops its many tentacles.
After the first murder is discovered in this town with no history of murders, it is followed by another. Soon murders and suspects pile up, yet there is no appreciable success in solving the crimes. There doesn’t seem to be one motive to wrap their arms around. In the end, there are several mysteries evolving. One concerns greed driven treason and terrorism, another is about a secret black ops prison being run by rogue individuals, and a third is jealousy which becomes more complicated because the jealousy involves rivalry, and alternate lifestyles that complicate the matter. When clues are discovered, they cause misdirection and further confusion.
It was somewhat dismaying to keep reading a book without the satisfaction of even figuring out even one part of the plot. As The FBI and other secret security agents are involved, it grows more complicated. The story is disjointed because there are so many parts and their reason is elusive. Solving one does not lead to a solution of another.
Why is there a secret facility in the middle of the Anabaptist community that should have been shut down years before? What is its current purpose? Why is there a secret prison there? Why is the Anabaptist’s teacher and former resident murdered? Is there a connection? Soon, there are so many unresolved themes which are so unrelated, it requires the author to completely knit the threads together in the end.
It wasn’t my favorite Baldacci, but it was still a decent read. show less

fiction, #6 in series (2020) but as with this sort of popular fiction, can easily serve as a standalone as an intro to the series/author. Also listed as Will Robie #5.5, since the character from a separate series (different skillset) also plays a part.

picked up from a Little Free Library, part of my trying various popular authors I've never read before--

follows FBI investigator Amos Decker (former Ohio football player, big/tall guy, photographic memory and synesthesiac) and his partner Alex Jamison (whose main role appears to be asking lots of questions so that Decker can mansplain things to her--to be fair, they are obscure things most people wouldn't know about so it's not so bad as that, but if you're not into telling vs showing this show more series may not be for you). They are called in to North Dakota (lots of fracking and oil workers in the otherwise small town of London, very hot and humid in the summer with plenty of lightning storms) for a strange murder case--the victim appears to have been autopsied before being dumped in a field, but it's unknown at first what the FBI's interest in the case would be--possibly the victim knew something, possibly connected to the Brothers, a local branch of the Anabaptist group (a closed-off religious patriarchal commune), or possibly connected to a high-security military base that seems perilously close to both the Brothers and the horizontal oil drilling.

not so much a mystery, as there are way too many weird parts to try to fit together, and drags a bit at first (before the second murder victim, it's a lot of talking and wondering) and the description of Robie's skill in staying still to do surveillance is mentioned twice in nearly identical ways, but overall a satisfyingly twisty suspense plot (however improbable). Jamison (and Robie's female spypartner Reed) play relatively minor roles but Jamison does help to flesh out some kind of dynamic where Decker works on his people skills.

* contains at least one explosion, and some stormy weather, also a father that didn't support his gay son, and the son's subsequent suicide. Also a bunch of murders and killings, not super gory in description though. show less