Long Road to Mercy

If I have a favorite genre, it would be either Action-Adventure or International Crime and Conspiracy. To my line of thinking, "Long Road to Mercy" is Action-Adventure, but I noticed it was billed as International Mystery and Crime. At any rate, I knew that it would be a good story, as I always enjoy books by this author.In one sentence, I found Atlee Pine to be an authentic, Scarily Tough Heroine. "Long Road to Mercy" is a Must-Read.Mind you, though, that the early chapters in which we learn much about our heroine did give me cause for concern. Why? It seemed eerily close to Silence of the Lambs, but the character by Jody Foster was a much more physically adapted character. A character who, by the way, felt much more authentic than your typical heroine.Even though I don't think it would be a spoiler, I'm not going to explain the cause for her developing in such a direction, because that is the fresh take, early, regarding this character that makes these first few pages intriguing to read.The second half of the novel is better than the first half. In fact, some two-thirds in, this becomes a great page-turner. I enjoyed the adventure in this part almost as much as the character.BLUSH FACTOR Readers familiar with Baldacci will know that his characters are not the sort from the Wizard of Oz, so don't expect to be reading this to youngsters or with your prayer group. But, even if you have objections to the eff-word, this is a book worth reading. And, frankly, the profanity is somewhat sparing. It is used to good effect as a seasoning agent, rather than to an excess.CHARACTER: My thoughts regarding Atlee Pine - At last, a female FBI agent who feels real and is not some Charlie's Angel or a model. This character has just enough flaws to make her intriguing.POV: Third person.EXCERPT:I'm only posting the briefest possible tidbit, just so an informed judgment becomes possible.'...After losing Mercy, she had been put into counseling. As a bereaved six-year-old, she had found it confusing, scary, and, ultimately, unhelpful.Four years ago, she had tried it again. With the exact same result. She had sat in a group counseling session and had listened as the attendees went around the room discussing their most personal issues. When her turn had come, Pine, who had been shot, stabbed, and attacked multiple times in the line of duty, had started to sweat and taken the coward’s way out—she had passed on her turn and never gone back.For some reason, all of this had made her averse to possessions. She wanted to go through life with as few as possible. These included people as well. Some shrinks might interpret that as her being fearful of another significant loss. And they might not be far off the mark. But Pine had never allowed herself the time or opportunity to dig deep enough into her psyche to prove that theory true or false.She showered to take off the dirt and sweat of the Grand Canyon. She dressed in fresh clothes, sat down at her knotty pine kitchen table, which had come with the apartment and which also doubled as her home office, and checked her emails, phone messages, and texts.There was one from her direct superior out of Flagstaff. He wanted to knowBaldacci, David. Long Road to Mercy (Atlee Pine) (pp. 45-46). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition.BOTTOM LINEAlthough the trip to the prison to visit the serial killer felt a little too familiar, and raises other questions in the reader's minds, it was enough different and personal enough that it was not so similar to other stories in this genre. Further, the writing throughout "Long Road to Mercy" is taut with intrigue and suspense so much so that I could only, with much difficulty, put it down to take care of other pressing needs, such as make a pot of coffee and the like.Five stars out of five.I am striving to produce reviews that help you find books that you want, or avoid books that you wish to avoid. With your help, my improvement will help you and me improve book reviews on Amazon. Together, you and I can build a great customer review process that helps everybody. Will you join me? It is people such as you who have helped me improve over the years. I'm still learning, and I have a great deal yet to learn. With your help, I'll improve every day.One request: Be respectful and courteous in your comments and emails to me. I will do likewise with you.Thank you so much for indicating if this review helped you, or for your comment. for indicating if this review helped you, or for your comment.

There comes a time when one of your favourite authors stumbles because they have written so much and laboured so hard to meet the grueling annual publication timetable. This time the stumble is more like a fatal fall for me. Basically, while I really admire Baldacci's work and have given it so many stars over the years, IMHO this time he has lost the plot with a terrible plot (excuse the unintended pun).The best thing about this book was that Baldacci was brave enough to introduce another major character, after the extremely strange bunch he has created over the years. Unfortunately, a female FBI agent with near Olympic weightlifting credentials who works on her own running the smallest FBI office near the Grand Canyon is not the kind of heroine that one normally barracks for. Also, almost single-handed she walks into and tries to solve one of the most complex and unbelievable plots of international corruption. I would like to give you a sample of the plot but that spoiler would only show up the sheer stupidity of the plot.When I got more than halfway through the book I decided to plod on as the plot got more ridiculous but admit to skipping a lot to see if Baldacci could redeem himself at the end, but to no avail. I am especially concerned that a top rated reviewer said it was a must read. Maybe he lives in another universe to me (and at one time I was a Top 500 Reviewer).Baldacci has a great reputation going back beyond the days of the Coffee Club. I hope that he can take a long break and come up with something worthwhile next time.

Atlee Pine is about as believable as the Easter Bunny. This book is awful. Baldacci feels compelled to drag the reader into his political worldview. Total garbage.

I am a David Baldacci fan. I look forward to his new book releases. I pre-order my copy, mark my calendar, then devour the book the minute it drops into my library. Long Road to Mercy, with Atlee Pine, was very hard for me to get through. It finally sparked my interest at about 25% of the way through, but it took me days , not hours, to get to the finish line.The new character, Atlee Pine, and her Secretary, Carol Blum, work out of the small FBI office in Arizona. It is just the two women in this office but they are very proper with each other, pretty much knowing nothing about the other. So, there was no real chemistry during their interactions. Atlee herself was a pretty bland character. She is extremely strong, works out, lifts weights....and? I don't know. I like to get an image in my mind of the characters I read about. I just kept seeing She-Hulk, but flesh colored. I think she might have dark hair, I can't remember.Other characters introduced seemed very basic. I wasn't sure which ones were supposed to be important or vital to the story line. The setting was Arizona, the Grand Canyon, and there was road trip. It felt very 'blah'.The 'bad guys'... I wasn't really sure who they were until the end. Every character seemed to be someone Atlee shouldn't trust, but she did. I was waiting for an *Aha! " moment when they would turn on her. And it wasn't a good, suspenseful not knowing who the bad guy was. I was just confused. And people are dying and disappearing, but nobody seems to be looking for them.In the end, I just didn't feel the intrigue or suspense that I have come to expect and enjoy from Baldacci books. Something just felt off when the ending didn't feel like an ending.I gave Long Road to Mercy only 1 Star. I was very disappointed.

Love Baldacci, read everyone of his books and have never been disappointed...this one NEVER lives up to his previous works. Heck, I should've know It was going to be bad when star of the book, FBI agent Atlee Pine is called to investigate a dead donkey in the middle of the Grand Canyon. Seemed like Baldacci was in a rush to meet his quota with the publisher and pumped out what arguably is his worst book..