First Family

[First Family] by David Baldacci
Maxwell & King series Book #5
4.5 stars

From The Book:
A daring kidnapping turns a children's birthday party at Camp David, the presidential retreat, into a national security nightmare.

Former Secret Service agents turned private investigators, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell don't want to get involved. But years ago Sean King saved the First Lady's husband, then a senator, from political disaster. Now the president's wife presses Sean and Michelle into a desperate search to rescue a kidnapped child. With Michelle still battling her own demons, the two are pushed to the limit, with forces aligned on all sides against them--and the line between friend and foe impossible to define . . . or defend.

My show more Thoughts:
This is and has been my favorite Baldacci series for quiet some time. There is not too much that he can do wrong as far as I'm concerned except maybe kill my two heroes and thus far he hadn't sone that.

This one was intriguing in that he did not try to paint the President and the First Lady as perfectly innocent and untouchable but instead as real people with real faults and problems. "Stand By Your Man" is one phrase that many women will understand all too well. As for King and Maxwell...they are larger than life and practically indestructible..but that's what I like about them. Their dedication to one another and their willingness to doggedly follow a trail until justice is served is admirable.

David Baldacci is famous for "the plot within a plot" and the end result is amazing. I was totally pleased with this finely tuned mystery that presented challenges in every chapter and surprises at the end. show less

This is Baldacci’s fourth novel featuring Former Secret Service agents and current private investigators, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. They are on their way to see Pam Dutton, who is the President's sister-in-law, and has urgently requested their help. As they arrive at the Dutton house, they see a car speeding away. Of course they step in to try and catch the car but are unsuccessful. When they return, the FBI and Secret Service informs them that someone broke into the party, being attended by the First Lady, kidnapped twelve year old Willa Dutton, and shot and killed her mother. Because Sean once helped First Lady, Jane Cox, out of an embarrassing situation, she hires them to find Willa.

From the beginning we know who the show more kidnapper is, because his story is told in alternate chapters. We suspect Sam Quarry is out for some sort of revenge but we won't know the true story for quite some time. Sam is a fascinating man and completely different from the usual “bad guy” characters. The reader knows from the beginning that whatever caused him to plan this revenge has been weighing on his mind for over thirteen years. Willa is the star of this book and every section told from her point of view made the story more interesting.

I really enjoyed this part of the story but for some reason Baldacci chose to have another completely unrelated plot going on. In the third book of this series, readers discover that Michelle had a childhood trauma that has affected her in many ways. Because she was under hypnosis at the time she doesn't remember this. During the hunt for Willa, Michelle is called back to her hometown because someone killed her mother, and her father is a suspect. I felt like this thread completely disrupted the main story and I wish Baldacci had not chosen to trot it out in this book. Overall there was enough action and suspense, with a couple of twists, to make this an interesting look at power and how the powerful use it. show less

When the niece of the FIrst Lady is kidnapped, she calls in private detectives Sean King and Michelle Maxwell to supplement the FBI. Sean had helped her in a previous incident so she thinks he might be able to do more. But he uncovers a web of lies and deceit as they race the clock to rescue the girl.
The first half of the book was good. Sean and Michelle are okay characters and the story moved along. However, the second part completely fell apart. There were almost no likable characters and the plot jumped the shark, devolving into a lot of unnecessary drama, in my opinion. It was kind of a mess honestly. Still, it's an okay beach read.

I give this one a half-star rating because I can't give it minus-stars. And I'm writing a "review" here to remind myself never, never to buy another Baldacci book. I really need to quit picking up books on a whim at the grocery store. I like a good mystery-detective-thriller as much as the next person, but this thing ain't it. I also don't expect books in that genre to be written with deathless prose. But this one--I read to the halfway point, hating myself with every page for not putting it down, and finally I threw it at the wall when I Baldacci threw in yet another absurd "how his characters will solve the mystery" plot twist. Any writer who so disrespects his readers doesn't deserve readers in the first place.

This book was so show more unevenly written, it was almost as if there was more than one person writing it. The scenes with the character named Quarry in Georgia were at least readable. The scenes with the two former Secret Service people, Sean and Michelle, were absurd. If I ever need an example of wooden, childish, boring, tone-deaf dialogue, then this book will be where I'll go for the best example of the worst dialogue by a published writer, maybe ever. show less

This is Baldacci’s fourth novel featuring Former Secret Service agents and current private investigators, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. They are on their way to see Pam Dutton, who is the President's sister-in-law, and has urgently requested their help. As they arrive at the Dutton house, they see a car speeding away. Of course they step in to try and catch the car but are unsuccessful. When they return, the FBI and Secret Service informs them that someone broke into the party, being attended by the First Lady, kidnapped twelve year old Willa Dutton, and shot and killed her mother. Because Sean once helped First Lady, Jane Cox, out of an embarrassing situation, she hires them to find Willa.

From the beginning we know who the show more kidnapper is, because his story is told in alternate chapters. We suspect Sam Quarry is out for some sort of revenge but we won't know the true story for quite some time. Sam is a fascinating man and completely different from the usual “bad guy” characters. The reader knows from the beginning that whatever caused him to plan this revenge has been weighing on his mind for over thirteen years. Willa is the star of this book and every section told from her point of view made the story more interesting.

I really enjoyed this part of the story but for some reason Baldacci chose to have another completely unrelated plot going on. In the third book of this series, readers discover that Michelle had a childhood trauma that has affected her in many ways. Because she was under hypnosis at the time she doesn't remember this. During the hunt for Willa, Michelle is called back to her hometown because someone killed her mother, and her father is a suspect. I felt like this thread completely disrupted the main story and I wish Baldacci had not chosen to trot it out in this book. Overall there was enough action and suspense, with a couple of twists, to make this an interesting look at power and how the powerful use it. show less

This is a continuing series involving ex-Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. As the book title implies, the book involves the President of the United States and his family. The President's niece is kidnapped, and King and Maxwell are hired by the First Lady to find her. An unnecessary side-plot involving the murder of ex-Agent Maxwell's mother is included, for reasons I couldn't understand other than it adds pages to the book.

Intentional or not, Baldacci's Presidential Couple could easily be based on the Bill and Hillary Clinton. The fictional President, Dan Cox, seemed to have difficulty keeping his pants on around young women, and the fictional First Lady, Jane Cox, proved to be a strong, powerful political animal show more who would do whatever was required to get things done her way. And the legacy of both Presidents were diminished by scandals during their second terms.

The main thread of the book involves King and Maxwell trying to catch up with the kidnapper Sam Quarry who is behind the kidnapping and trying to settle an old score. It proved to be a good book with an interesting plot, and while your suspicions are raised during the book, the full story stays well hidden until the concluding chapters of the book. show less

I really enjoyed this book and it is a clear favourite in the King and Maxwell Series so far. I loved the way that we didn't have Sean keeping things back from us (and his partner) like he did in the other books, and the way this allowed for plenty of speculation about what had happened in the past and who was to blame. I always prefer it when I get the chance to interact with a book in this way. There were a number of humorous points in this story that made me laugh out loud. look forward to continuing this series and will be interested to see where they take the characters next.