The Whole Truth
by David Baldacci
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Book Reviews of The Whole Truth
Book Review: "I can make them believe anything."
Summary: 3 Stars
Dick Pender, a former employee in the White House press office, is an expert in perception management. His motto is: "Why waste time trying to discover the truth, when you can so easily create it?" In David Baldacci's "The Whole Truth," some very influential people pay Pender big bucks to bury inconvenient secrets and manipulate public opinion, using cleverly crafted lies packaged for maximum media impact. Pender's most important client is Machiavellian billionaire Nicholas Creel, the head of a defense conglomerate called the Ares Corporation. Creel, who believes that "a peace based on lurking terror was the best kind of all," hires Pender to manufacture an artificial conflict that would generate a stepped-up arms race among the world's superpowers.
Baldacci's hero is Shaw, a globetrotting troubleshooter for a shadowy international law-enforcement organization, "sort of like Interpol on steroids." He is a strong and physically imposing man whose knowledge of surveillance, hand-to-hand combat, and weaponry makes him a highly valuable asset. His acting ability, uncanny intuition, courage, and coolness under pressure have helped him prevail in a number of dangerous situations. On any given day, Shaw's quarry might include ruthless drug dealers, bloodthirsty terrorists, or vicious neo-Nazis. Although Shaw dreams of retiring and living a sedate life with his beautiful and brilliant girlfriend, German-born Anna Fischer, his boss has him in a stranglehold from which he cannot easily break free.
Complicating matters is Katie James, an award-winning investigative journalist. As a result of a traumatic experience in Afghanistan, she became an alcoholic who has been relegated to writing obituaries. Through happenstance, Katie meets Shaw and both narrowly escape after a run-in with a group of murderous thugs in Scotland. When an unexpected tragedy sends an enraged Shaw on a mission of revenge, Katie decides to risk her life in order to help him and, in the process, pursue the biggest story of her career.
Although it is action-packed and suspenseful, "The Whole Truth" is marred by cliché-ridden dialogue and cartoonish villains who utter such lines as: "I didn't bring you here for a lecture. I brought you here to die." The story is convoluted and extremely violent, and the author repeatedly hammers home his heavy-handed message that unscrupulous individuals and even governments intentionally mislead us by disseminating false information. At best, "The Whole Truth" provides escapist entertainment for readers who are willing to overlook the book's one-dimensional characters, far-fetched plot, and pedestrian writing.
Book Review: A so-so effort from Baldacci, though still better than his other recent works
Summary: 3 Stars
When he burst onto the scene with his first book "Absolute Power", Baldacci made an amazing debut with a novel of political intrigue that showed a fine talent for complex plotting, deep and rich characterizations, and edge-of-your-seat suspense. It was subsequently made into a very good Clint Eastwood movie.
Unfortunately, Baldacci hasn't been able to hit that standard since. His last few books, centering on the Camel Club, have -- frankly -- been pretty lame and formulaic, in my opinion.
In "The Whole Truth", Baldacci brings a new set of characters to us in a story that centers on the efforts of a multi-billionaire arms merchant (Nicholas Creel) to reshape world events to foster a world order more to his political and financial preferences; and the efforts of a heroic but shadowy para-secret-agent (Shaw) to thwart his scheme.
Credit to Baldacci for trying to approach once again a story of broader scope and more complexity than his recent efforts, something more along the lines of "Absolute Truth". Unfortunately, he achieves only moderate success.
To begin with, I found the Shaw character to be pretty much a knockoff of Lee Childs's "Jack Reacher" character, but not as interesting. With Reacher, we have a background; Shaw pretty much seems to have appeared from a vacuum. He's underdeveloped, doesn't seem to have a history that existed before this story, and therefore wasn't nearly as interesting to me as Reacher. Secondary character Katie James is actually much more fully realized.
Nicholas Creel is a more interesting character, and more fully developed, but again seemed to be somewhat of a cypher. His motives in the story were explained, but didn't seem to resonate on an emotional level.
The plot crux of the story -- media manipulation to create an international military crisis -- seemed incredibly far-fetched, and depended on irrational and inexplicable actions on the part of secondary and peripheral characters. It just didn't really work. And because it didn't, I got no sense of real urgency from the story; no emotional "zing".
So... a mixed bag. It moved along briskly. And kudos to Baldacci for leaving the Camel Club at the oasis this time around.
Three stars.
Book Review: New Old Direction for David Baldacci!
Summary: 4 Stars
New Old Direction for David Baldacci!
Not quite 5 stars.
It appears Mr. Baldacci has returned to his original suspense "thriller" roots; and it came none too soon as I was growing weary with his new "less-than-gratifying" direction in his last 4 novels. Welcome back Mr. Baldacci.
The Whole Truth is an excellent thriller and appears to lay the groundwork for future novels involving a man simply known only as Shaw, Katie an alcoholic journalist, and Frank a tough quasi-cop. Terrific chemistry between the three strong characters. Like Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Shaw is basically a loner who is more than able to take care of himself regardless of the situation he finds himself in. Katie is a former 2 time Pulitzer winning journalist whose life is a mess. Frank is the supervisor of a covert, Interpol type police force that Shaw is "forced" to work for. The 3 form the nucleus of a crime fighting team that is second to none, and promises future thrilling Baldacci adventures.
The Whole Truth centers on the manipulation of "The" truth as a form of "perception management". In other words, truth is perception and perception is truth. It is the manipulation of perception that makes things appear to be true when in fact they are not. In The Whole Truth the world's largest defense contractor, Nicolas Creel, attempts to re-establish the cold war through perception management manipulation in order to make billions in new defense contracts from the deceived world super powers. He is almost successful except for the actions of Shaw, Katie, and Frank.
Excellent mystery thriller, good believable fast-paced action, and wonderfully crafted character interaction. Overall simply an excellent story.
Character development was superb. It appears Mr. Baldacci has set the table for more thrillers with this threesome which I am heartily looking forward to.
No gratuitous violence, language or sex. Just a very good believable action thriller.
Solid recommend as the basis for future Baldacci novels.
Book Review: Not one of Baldacci's Better Efforts
Summary: 2 Stars
I've read a few of David Baldacci's novels, and I find they are pretty uneven in quality. His first novel, ABSOLUTE POWER, was a terrific thriller, but I haven't had much luck with his later efforts. I find Baldacci readable, but he tends to produce novels with plots that border on the ridiculous, and with characters that border on the cartoonish.
THE WHOLE TRUTH is pretty much typical of later Baldacci. This novel is billed as Baldacci's first international thriller, although it doesn't read that differently from his prior work (except for the European locations). The central character is a solitary operative named Shaw who works for a secret police organization of some kind. Shaw bears more than a passing resemblance to James Bond. The villain in this book is a billionaire arms dealer who plans to create a new cold war in order to increase his profits. He is ridiculously greedy and evil in every scene in which he appears, much in the same way a typical Bond villain would be.
The first third of THE WHOLE TRUTH is actually good (if silly) fun. Unfortunately, after a strong start, this novel runs out of gas very quickly. There are almost no surprises --the reader knows exactly who the villains are and what they're up to. Since Baldacci holds nothing back, this novel contains little true suspense. It's just a matter of waiting for Shaw to learn what the reader already knows. In the end, I found most of this novel pretty predictable.
Further, Baldacci has a not-so-subtle political message for his readers, which is his dark suspicion of the military industrial complex. While I don't mind political messages in an author's work, Baldacci is too heavy handed in the way he proffers his opinions. As with THE CAMEL CLUB, there are certain sections of this book that read like a lecture, which gets in the way of the story.
THE WHOLE TRUTH is readable enough, but I think there are far better books out there, including Baldacci's own ABSOLUTE POWER. My advice is to skip this one.
Book Review: Far fetched and silly - but not terrible
Summary: 3 Stars
The Whole Truth is middling effort from David Baldacci. It's nowhere near as bad The Camel Club, not nearly as good as Stone Cold, slightly better than Simple Genius, and a far cry from Absolute Power.
The premise of the novel is extremely farfetched. Certainly, perception management is practiced all the time, but the magnitude of the deception in this novel is so huge and dependent upon so many variables that it's hard to accept. The story hinges on the notion that citizens of the Western world become obsessed with the plight of a Russian dissident who was allegedly murdered by the state. This struck me as highly improbable. Human rights violations occur all over the world all the time, and frankly we try not to think about it too much, particularly if that Country's economy is important to our interests.
As improbable as the whole plot seemed, it didn't really bother me. Elaborate conspiracies are to be expected in novels of this type. What really brings the novel down is the clichéd and silly characters. The villain in this novel is as cartoonish as any Bond villain and the heroes are one dimensional (and apparently invincible).
Frequent attempts to kill our heroes are predictably unsuccessful. As is often the case in these types of novels, our heroes are left for dead, only to survive by some miracle. The villain, of course, ultimately decides that he wants to personally kill our heroes, which enables them to find out who is responsible for everything that has happened when they otherwise never would have.
Don't these villains ever watch action movies? Apparently not, otherwise they wouldn't keep making the same silly mistakes that every other villain makes.
All in all, this novel isn't terrible. It moves along briskly enough and is marginally entertaining. I can't recommend it with much enthusiasm, but I suppose you could do worse. I hear the new Lee Child novel is a real stinker.