Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs. That these easter eggs are meaningless and even befuddling to new readers might make sense in terms of costs and benefits. The author doesn't mention Decker's race, but since he's being contrasted with his new partner in every way, perhaps readers are expected to see him as White. Together with the prospect of working with a new partner, Frederica White, Amos Decker knows that this case will take all of his special skills to solve. In investigating the dead bodyguard Decker and Freddie dip into the past as well, as they look into his employers and long-buried secrets.

Hachette Book Group is a leading book publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the third-largest publisher in the world. But the biggest problem is that this narrative is framed as a mystery without delivering the pleasures of a mystery. And Decker did not relish being in Earl’s position to have to explain what had really taken place when that gun had fired. He sat there as his little room was lit by the electric blue of a death that had touched him from nearly a thousand miles distant. Having a perfect memory was a godsend for a detective, but a thousand-pound ball-and-chain for a human being.After his football career ended he had become a policeman and then a detective in his hometown; thus, seeing dead bodies was not all that unusual. Baldacci is to be congratulated on how he sets up the story, creates three-dimensional characters, and layers seemingly unrelated situations one on top of the other until the resolution becomes startlingly clear. A thriller with bloody murders and plenty of suspects and featuring an unlikely partnership between two FBI investigators. Here Decker is sure that two murders (the judge and the bodyguard) – occurring in the same house at the same time – are in fact the work of different perpetrators.

Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. This is the latest book in the Amos Decker series and we follow him to Florida where he is sent to investigate the murder of a judge and her bodyguard. What at first seems cut and dry is anything but: Not only did the judge have more enemies than Decker can count—from violent gang members, drug dealers, and smugglers to a resentful ex-husband—but the bodyguard presents additional conundrums that muddy the waters even further. Their case is strange: Judge Julia Cummins was stabbed 10 times and her face covered with a mask, while her bodyguard was shot to death.The seventh novel in this series is possibly the best one featuring Amos Decker yet, shaking things up and assembling the pieces anew.

He sat down and read it through twice, though his perfect memory had already imprinted all of the contents in his mind forever. We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006). He glanced once at the trash can where the destroyed letter rested and then grabbed his car keys and walked out the door. A suited Decker, usually comfortable only in jeans or wrinkled khakis and a loose sweatshirt, stared down at the eternal berth-to-be in the ground.

He felt a nudge on his hand and opened his eyes to see Sandy’s small, slender fingers curling around his long, thick ones. I commented in my review of Walk the Wire (the last book in this series) that I felt Baldacci made things a little too convoluted.