A special thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review,
sitelink TopBooks of Best Audiobook tie, Best Baldacci Novel to date, Best new series Amos Decker,
David Baldacci is at the “top of this game”, with histh novel, delivering a riveting and absorbing new series, MEMORY MAN a flawed offbeat heroAmos Decker, drawing you into his world of tragedy, loss, and complexity for hours of mindblowing intensity,
With a mix of crime, cop procedural, medical, psychological, and a multilayered mystery thriller pageturner, you cannot put downuntil you reach the words, “for just a little while.
”
Amos Decker would forever remember all of their violent deaths in the most paralyzing shade of blue, He would never be free from it, The night when his life changed, Former Detective Amos Decker had been on a stakeout, driving home and walks in to his worst nightmare, Red. Blood. He discovers first a knife, second a gun his brotherinlaw, Johnny, throat split from ear to ear his wife, Cassie, a singleentry gunshot in her forehead and lastly, his precious daughter, Mollynot quite ten years old, death by strangulation.
With nothing left. He cannot stay. His family is gone. He stares at his muzzle, ready to end his life, as he was not there to protect his family, As he stares at his muzzle ready to end his life, to die, and join his family however, for some reason unknown even to him, Amos Decker does not pull the trigger and calls.
In the months to come, he loses the house to foreclosure, as they were barely making the payments with his and Cassies salary, On his paycheck alone it was impossible, He tried to sell it however, no one would buy a house covered in blood, He lived in an apartment for several months, then a motel, a friends couch to a homeless shelter, to a cardboard box in a Walmart parking lot, when he reaches rock bottom.
Cassie and Molly would be ashamed, So he cleans himself up with some odd jobs and moved into the Residence Inn and hangs out his PI shingle,
Amos has not had a simple life, A fouryearcollege football player, a professional for short stint, keeping fit as a cop and later a detective, A big, towering athlete, he was the only person from his hometown of Burlington ever to go pro, But his career ended before it had a chance to begin, On his very first play, a violent helmettohelmet collision knocked him off the field for good, and left him with an improbable side effecthe can never forget anything, Amos Deckers life changed forevertwice,
From that moment, Decker's brain shifted and he lost the ability to forget, The entire world became a myriad of colors and memories that he could easily access, With his new abilities, he's the perfect candidate to become a police detective, He can visit a crime scene once and walk through it over and over again in his mind, and he can remember verbatim testimony by a witness or suspect, Decker has hyperthymesia, an extremely rare condition that makes him unable to forget anything, Two decades after suffering the hit, the blow Decker's life is once again unraveling, with the murder of his wife, young daughter and brotherinlaw,
Months later, no suspects, and no one had been arrested for the murders of his family, A trail grown cold, and the odds of solving the case and catching the killer had dropped to near zero, He had left the police force, as he could no longer push paper, when he cared about nothing, except for “one thing”, Their deaths had to be connected with what he did after all, he had put hundreds of people away over the years and some were out of prison now and they could have found him for revenge.
But there was no scrap of evidence, No trial, No execution. His fault, His guilt.
Now, fifty pounds overweight, a bum knee, and a soft gut, However, he has never been normal since the “hit” the only thing he had never remembered, Ironically, since it was the catalyst for his “never forgetting” anything else, And even the national news felt the need to document the violence done to him, on YouTube, All he had done to deserve the folderol of attention was to die on a football field, not once, but twice, He could have been written up in scholarly journals and there could have been media and money, but he had not seen himself as a prodigy, He had seen himself as a freak and no longer able to watch sports, He was just a machine and some prick was taunting him, the monster who killed his family and and now could they be turning their rage on Mansfield High School
Three years later, Decker discovers a man has turned himself in to the police and confesses to the murders, and he comes up with a brilliant plan.
Loved this part. He pretends to be
an attorney to get into the cell, He has talents and gifts and he will use them to uncover the truth, He has learn the truth Is this the monster who killed his family Too many holes in his story, This cannot be the man, but why is he confessing In addition, at the same time another tragedy occurs in the same town of Burlington, A high school shooting.
What comes next is an intense fastpaced action mystery suspense of connecting the past, a football career, the time when he was recovering from the hit, a police career, a new school shooting, an army base all of which may be connected to his familys murders, and a decadeold plan of evil, murder, and revenge.
Some awesome characters contribute for some added human dynamics with Deckers former partner, FBI agent, a reporter, and a fellow cop,
Wow, I have read almost every Baldacci series: John Puller, Will Robie, King amp Maxwell, The Camel Club, The Shaw Series, and his many standalones, each being unique however, MEMORY MAN is captivating, from page one My favorite.
The author brilliantly sets up his character he is humble, troubled, flawed, worn down, homeless and sharp, He can assist the authorities in ways no one else can, He had it all, and lost it all, Amos' tenacity, his gift, and his drive to find the killers, a humble hero on his journey to redemption cleverly plotted,
Amos Decker is a standout character leaving fans anxiously awaiting a second book, lets hope, as this one is just too damn good to be a standalone.
I literally dropped my other ARCs, planning to read this one for a few hours did not stop until I reached the end,
Having already preordered the audiobook, before receiving an advanced reading copy, had the double pleasure of enjoying both fascinating versions, As always, Ron McLarty and Orlagh Cassidy delivers an outstanding performance!
If for some reason cannot imagine, if you have never read David Baldacci, MEMORY MAN is a perfect place to startyour journey to being an avid fan, like the rest of us!
Can't wait for sitelink THE LAST MILE Amos Decker, Coming April,.
sitelink Judith D, Collins Must Read Books
Wow, Baldacci has a knack for excellent thrillers/characters, His protagonist Amos Decker was a marginal pro football player, whose career ended on his first play when he was KO'd, literally scrambling his brain, resulting in perfect memory and synesthesia.
He becomes a successful detective, but his family is killed, destroying his life, Then, there is senseless slaughter at the local school, and Decker is asked to help, only to find the same gun was used in both incidents, Decker is aided by his former partner and an aggressive reporter to help solve the crimes, The big reveal is stunning and quite creative, I couldn't wait to sludge through this redundant, murderous, sorrowful written drivel of muck, There is nothing redeeming. After the second time a gun is put to the head, I wanted to put one to my own for being sucked into this quagmire of crap, Despicable and awful.ofstars! First in the series that I read when it came out, Don't know how I missed doing a review, I liked this one a great deal, and highly recommend, Excellent premise and execution. The entire series is worth the look, The third one fell down a tad but I liked the fourth so I'm definitely in if he does another,
The main character is nicely flawed and I was pulling for him throughout the book, He has unique talents that are utilized in the story to great effect, He isn't a rock umsockum hero by any means, These stories are more cerebral though a lot of bodies do hit the floor,
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series,/stars. What is extremely impressive about this book is how David Baldacci has managed to convince thousands of readers that this kind of shit is not only good, but something shiny and new.
First of all, Amos Decker is a gasp "memory man", meaning that an injury gave him the ability to never forget ANYTHING! You got that, right He remembers everything he has experienced.
Literally everything. Isn't that completely unique and never heard of before So weird how no mystery/crime author has thought to do this!
Okay, I'll stop,
But the big selling point of this novel is a character who forgets nothing and, let's be honest, this is pretty common in the genre, Sherlock Holmes, one of the most famous fictional detectives of all time, has a photographic memory slightly different from Decker's hyperthymesia, but mostly the same, The fact that this is pretty much the extent of Decker's characterization and it is somehow supposed to be shocking well, that kind of fell flat instantly,
There are many things in this book that I suspect we are supposed to exclaim dramatically at and be impressed by, but we've either seen them before or they're flimsy at best.
For example, Decker is supposed to be the absolute best at his job because of his memory, and yet rather than being wowed by him, I got the impression that everyone else in the book was dumbed down to make him look better.
He would make a fairly obvious deduction and all the other agents' mouths would gape open in awe, Seriously, I could have told them that,
Backstory goes like this: Decker left the police after discovering his wife, daughter, and brotherinlaw murdered in his home, The murderer was never caught, But he now finds himself pulled back into an investigation of a school shooting, because he is just so damn good that they need him on the case, Nobody else can figure this out, What's more, a guy called Sebastian Leopold confesses to his family's murder and gets taken in but some things just don't add up,
The story is full of plot holes the detectives ignore key pieces of evidence to prolong the mystery, instead looking into other dead ends, They mostly do nothing, anyway, and just stare googlyeyed at Decker, waiting for his instruction, As a reader of fairly average intelligence, I definitely don't like to feel I could conduct a murder investigation better than trained detectives, I did here.
Also, the "motive" did not make any sense to me, I do not think the reasons given in this book added up to the sum of the crimes at all, It seemed like Baldacci had a random idea for a crime and a random idea for a "reveal" and simply stuck the two together, even though they didn't fit, The answers to the mystery are kind of ludicrous, throwing more mess into an already convoluted plot,
I'd even go so far as to say the conclusions add some disturbing implications, and I don't mean in a good way,
The rating gets rounded up only because Baldacci knows how to keep you interested and turning the pages, His writing has a certain easytodigest charm that makes me think I should try his other books, This one, though, was clearly not a good place to start,
sitelinkBlog sitelinkFacebook sitelinkTwitter sitelinkInstagram sitelinkYoutube sitelinkStore My first ever sitelinkDavid Baldacci book and what a good one it was! I sat and read it all in one day because it was basically unputdownable.
The main character who is an ex cop is made extra interesting in that he is a savant and has the ability to remember everything, This of course is a great asset in a murder enquiry and by the end of the book our ex cop is looking forward to much greater things, This is marked as book one in a new series and I look forward to reading the next one, I also intend to make time to read a lot more of this author's books,
Classic Baldacci and a wonderful start to the Decker series, On to the next book,Wow!!! Amos Decker is the man!! Riveting from beginning to end, I must move on to the next book in this series, The first criterion for arating is whether I wanted to keep reading I really wanted to keep reading this one, Thend is whether I cared about the main character, which I did, despite his many serious flaws, Amos Decker is fascinating, and several other characters were also quite interesting, The plot line is a little stretched, but generally holds up, with some surprises along the way, The main strength of the book, however, is how Baldacci portrays what goes on inside Decker's seriously disturbed brain, Some reviewers objected to the repetition but I thought that was one of the main strengths of the book, Whewthis was pretty intense!!
Memory Man is thest book in David Baldaccis new thriller series and introduces one of the most offbeat characters, Amos Decker, whose injuries suffered in a football game ended not only his career but also resulted in him developing hyperthymesia and synesthesia disorders, which gives him the ability to see time as pictures, able to count in colors and to forget nothing in his head.
Coping with these abilities as best he can, his life is shattered when his wife and young child are brutally murded for no apparent reason, Unable to deal with his grief and desolation, he resigns from the police force, living in the streets and barely making a living as a private PI, not caring about his appearancegrosslyoverweight, disheveled, lonely and heartbroken, living day by day.
When a man confesses to the murder of his family, Amos Decker is determined to get involved, Within a few days following the confession, a mass shooting and massacre at the local high school that he had been one of the students, hes asked to help in the investigation by his former partner, Detective Mary Lancaster, who is in charge of both investigations.
An unexpected breakthrough links both of the killings of his family and the school,
The information of Amos sideeffects from his injuries, which I had never heard about, made some interesting reading, How he processed his thoughts and findings in his head was riveting stuff, Although there was a lot of repetition about it which I skimmed over a few times, Pretty scary when we watch how Amos deals with everyday things in his lifehe almost lives in a world of his own! One minute he and Mary are discussing something and he stops and walks away without saying a word to her.
The story moves pretty fast, from one place to another, finding people connected to Amoss lifebecause we soon find out that both the crimes have something to do with him.
I also found some parts of the plots and some of the characters, especially who the villains turn out to be, a bit farfetched and tad unbelievable,
I enjoyed this book but I felt it was a bit too long, And I am certainly going to read the next in the series, .