The Camel Club

This is the 3rd Baldacci offering I've tried, and I'm just not a fan of his fiction. I experienced The Camel Club as an audio book (and of course listening to a work over the course of many days alters the experience -- not usually for the better). I found the plot entirely unbelievable, and the number of characters made it hard to follow. I stopped caring about 2/3 of the way through, and just finished it to give it a sufficient chance.

The Camel Club consists of a small group of misfits -- all senior citizens -- led by an older man who calls himself "Oliver Stone" (after the film-maker). They are conspiracy theorists who try to figure out the truth behind US government actions. They stumble onto a real conspiracy when they happen to show more witness the murder of a government Secret Service agent in a Washington DC park, a murder designed to look like a suicide. When Alex Ford (another SS agent) seeks to investigate, he is demoted, signaling that a government cover-up is involved. Ford and Stone work together to figure out what's going on. They uncover a plot by Islamic terrorists to kidnap the US president but they are a strange sort of terrorist since they plan to do so without harming anyone and with plans to release him unharmed. And then there's an elaborate counterplot from within the US government to sell the president to the North Koreans (why North Koreans? I never did figure that out, and I can find no sign that any of the reviewers at GoodReads or Amazon were able to either). Meanwhile the VP (as acting president) plans to use nuclear weapons to obliterate Damascus as payback to the evil Arabs for the kidnapping -- as if slaughtering 6 million Syrian civilians to punish a handful of Arabs makes any sense at all -- politically or morally. At the very last minute, through heroic action by a character named Hemingway (who has the superhuman capacity to dodge machine gun bullets and kill Koreans with his bare hands), catastrophe is averted. As one (GoodReads) reviewer notes: "It all ends well, of course, everyone is saved and safe at the very last split second before impending world catastrophe, no Americans die, the bad guys are defeated, the world is saved, heroes abound, some of them find love, the US President looks forward to a new term with phenomenal approval ratings after the kidnapping, and so on."

The plot is just ridiculous, the dialogue is stilted, the characters are unlikeable, the action is not credible, and the writing is clumsy. There're lots of politically correct assurances that Islam is a religion of peace, to make up for the peaceable Arab terrorists who kidnap the president. As for the writing, Baldacci gropes in his memory for clichés to make up for his lack of inventiveness, and sometimes goes wrong. Someone should tell him that the phrase "dogs don't change their spots" is a malapropism; the actual phrase invokes leopards, animals that actually have spots. Baldacci also misused this same phrase in "The Hour Game". Clearly you can't teach old leopards new tricks. :-) show less

Here is a book with so much wasted potential. I loved the idea that a group of eccentric conspiracy theorists -- The Camel Club -- had stumbled upon a true conspiracy which involved the highest levels of the American Intelligence community and Islamic terrorists. So much fun could have been made of this situation but, Baldacci let this one get away from him to the point of absurdity. For one, the chief villain was so unbelievably invincible that not even Batman could have taken him on in a fight. Baldacci also seemed to feel it important, throughout the story, to present the Islamic world as superior to America, and to justify its terrorism on the basis of their victimization by the West. Not even the interesting cast of characters -- show more including the Camel Club members -- could save this lousy effort. show less

This book needed an editor to get rid of so much extraneous information. I ended up skipping whole chunks off text to avoid lectures on Islam and Muslim-American relations. After the first few examples, I felt like Baldacci was trying to show off how much research he had done. The overall plot was also not my cup of tea. I only kind of liked the characters in the Camel Club itself, but they might be worth giving the series a second try. I've heard better reviews of the second book from readers who read it first.

I read some of this series 10 or so years ago and really didn’t care much for it. It has always been my least favorite of everything David Baldacci…one of my favorite authors of all time… ever wrote. The essence of the series is politics and more politics. The characters though, are another matter. Oliver Stone and Agent Ford are what would keep most people reading and coming back for more. Ten years later…I’m back for more…and it was all because it was a group read for the Mystery & Suspense group on LibraryThing…people that make everything worth reading. I still didn’t care for all the politics but the action was superb…especially the last few chapters. If any American, or any other world citizen can read or listen show more to these last 6 or 7 chapters and not find themselves holding their breath and their heart rate accelerated…then they are already ready for that granite stone. Well done…reading group. I think I’ll join you for the next one. show less

It exists at the fringes of Washington, D.C., has no power, and consists solely of four eccentric and downtrodden members whom society has forgotten. Their simple goal is to find the "truth" behind their country's actions. One man leads this aging, ragtag crew. He has no known past and has taken the name "Oliver Stone." Day and night, Stone and his friends study wild conspiracy theories, current events, and the machinations of government, hoping to discover some truth that will hold America's leaders accountable to its citizens. Yet never in Stone's wildest nightmares could he imagine the conspiracy the Camel Club is about to uncover... After witnessing a shocking murder, the Club is slammed headfirst into a plot that threatens the very show more security of the nation, full of stunning twists, high-stakes intrigue, and global gamesmanship rocketing to the Oval Office and beyond. Soon the Club must join forces with veteran Secret Service agent Alex Ford, who becomes an unwilling participant in one of the most chilling spectacles to ever take place on American soil. It's an event that may well be the catalyst for the long-threatened Armageddon between two different worlds, and all that stands in the way of this apocalypse are five unexpected heroes.

I am a big fan of thrillers and I have been hooked on David Baldacci’s writing ever since I first picked up Absolute Power. In his novel The Camel Club, Baldacci introduces a host of interesting characters from various walks of life who come together in a powerful investigative group. Baldacci did a great job of bringing the characters to life, especially Secret Service agent Alex Ford and conspiracy hunter “Oliver Stone.” The pacing was perfect through the first half of the book and I was truly engaged in the story.

Unfortunately, it was at that point that The Camel Club snowballed out of control. Global political thrillers will often times take you right to the edge of believability, forcing you to consider that, yes, this really could happen under just the right circumstances. Baldacci, however, took about two steps over that line and I just couldn’t follow him in. Without spoiling the ending, the plot becomes unbelievable Baldacci really doesn’t provide enough to support what happens leaving the reader to buy-in on their own, which is a gamble that didn’t pay off. The story becomes comic-bookish in the end and looses the tension that built up well early in the book.

The Camel Club is the beginning of a series by Baldacci with these characters. Given that I really loved the characters, I am hoping that subsequent books have a more believable storyline for them to romp around in. show less

I have read other Baldacci books and enjoyed his seminar at the South Carolina Book Festival a few years ago. This one was different and it took me a little time to get into it. I wasn't sure I really liked the main character Oliver Stone but I did like the Secret Service agent Alex so I kept reading. It is based on conspiracy theories and at times it seems far-fetched but I was intrigued and soon couldn't put it down. As the book ends you understand and like Stone and Baldacci sets it up for new stories for The Camel Club which I plan on reading.

A group of older men with ties to various government and/or military agencies unite to solve a conspiracy that no one believes in until it's almost too late. This is what I call "beach reads for men" or "dude lit" (like, as opposed to "chick lit" get it?) This stuff is no more realistic than your average romance novel, but somehow gets treated with much, much more gravitas? Oh, well. The characters, especially the Camel Club themselves, were entertaining and the plot was suspenseful. A quick read even considering the relatively prolific amount of pages.