Hour Game
by David Baldacci
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Book Summary Information
Author: David BaldacciEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-09-01
ISBN: 0446616494
Number of pages: 624
Publisher: Warner Vision Books
Book Reviews of Hour Game
Book Review: Enjoyable read.
Summary: 4 Stars
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even though I had trouble with a couple of things. The only one I'll share is the total improbability of two bullets colliding as they travel toward each other in the dark from opposing guns at some distance apart. That one elicited a vocal "no way" from me when I read it. It was, however, worth a chuckle. One of the things I did enjoy about this book was the information about Civil War re-enactments which one of the characters was in to in a major way. I learned something from those passages.
The story opens with the killer trudging through the woods, hauling his recent kill to the spot where she will be found. He places a watch around the woman's wrist, checking to be sure it is set properly; cleans up after himself; and leaves. She's the first of many victim's in his diabolical plan. He has a list of those who are to die for their sins. He also plans to kill others to cause confusion for those who will be looking for him. This killer has no compunction about killing anyone who gets in his way, no manner how minutely they do so. But is he the only killer in the small, rural community of Wrightsburg, Virginia? Or did a copycat killer murder two of the victims?
There's some high drama in Hour Game, including an attempt to take out investigators, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell by killer SUV, and a high-powered boat trip during a fierce storm in another attempt to kill Sean. There are so many characters in Hour Game that I kept paper and pencil handy to write down their names down when they first appeared in the book. This helped a great deal as the story progressed. First, there's the killer and, then, investigators Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, police chief Todd Williams, and FBI agent Chip Bailey (so-called friend of the Bailey family), along with medical examiner Sylvia Diaz and the Battle's lawyer Harry Carrick. After that, there's the extremely wealthy and horribly dysfunctional Battle family. Patriarch Bobby Battle is in a coma in hospital after a stroke; Remmy (Remington) Battle, Bobby's long-suffering, yet powerful, wife is feared by all; their son Eddie Battle and wife Dorothea are both pretty screwy; and Savannah Battle is their very lost, twenty-something daughter. Oh, and then there's Mason, the butler. Other characters included Junior Deaver and his wife, Lulu Oxley, their children, and her mother, Priscilla. One character, long dead, but important to the story is Eddie's dead twin brother, Bobby, Jr. Throw in smarmy Kyle Montgomery, person-of-questionable-character, Roger Canney (father of murdered teenager Steve Canney), and stable girl, Sally Wainwright and you've got the main cast.
The killings in this story are gory and full of hate. The perpetrator of these crimes is a major sicko and not worthy of any sympathy. I was a little disappointed that Sean King, ex-lawyer and Secret Service agent turned investigator extraordinaire, gave him some. However, the most frightening chapter in this book (I'd like to think David Baldacci wrote it to warn all of us to be more circumspect) was Chapter 8, when the killer drives his little pale blue VW to a local, upscale shopping mall parking lot and picks out a couple innocent people as future victims. They way he was able to get information about them was terrifying!
Carolyn Rowe Hill
Summary of Hour Game
He's copying famous serial killers and the game has just begun.A woman is found murdered in the woods. It seems like a simple case but it soon escalates into a terrible nightmare. Someone is replicating the killing styles of the most infamous murderers of all time. No one knows this criminal's motives...or who will die next.
Two ex-Secret Service agents, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, have been hired to defend a man's innocence in a burglary involving an aristocratic, dysfunctional family. Then a series of secrets leads the partners right into the frantic hunt that is confounding even the FBI. Now King and Maxwell are playing the Hour Game, uncovering one horrifying revelation after another and putting their lives in danger. For the closer they get to the truth, the closer they get to the most shocking surprise of all.
Two disgraced former Secret Service officers team up to solve a series of copy-cat crimes in this exciting new thriller by a master of the game. Sean King was momentarily distracted when a presidential candidate he'd been guarding was assassinated a few feet from where he stood, and Michelle Maxwell left the Service under a similar cloud when she lost a "protectee" to an ingenious kidnapping scheme, events told in Baldacci's typical terse, fast-paced style in Split Second. Now partners in a private investigation firm in a small Virginia town, they're hired to investigate a burglary at the home of a wealthy local family. But even before the chief suspect in the break-in meets his death in a gruesome slaying reminiscent of a serial killer long since caught and punished, King and Maxwell get caught up in a string of other murders, each of which copies the techniques of another madman, from San Francisco's Zodiac Killer to Chicago's infamous John Wayne Gacy. While the two protagonists aren't especially complex or well-developed, the action never stops, and Baldacci's trademark pacing keeps the reader turning pages until the denouement, which unfortunately isn't quite as satisfying as the rest of the novel. --Jane Adams
Amazon.com Exclusive Content
Why Hour Game: An Exclusive Essay by David Baldacci 
It's hard not to notice that the majority of fictional serial killers are cut from the same mold. When David Baldacci wrote Hour Game, he went out of his way to create a murderous original. Read this Amazon.com exclusive essay to learn how and why he did it.
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