Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Let’s begin by saying that I am literally obsessed with the Amos Decker series by Baldacci. I wait every April for his new book release. But this one left me furious at times, bored at others, and overall confused in between. Before I go any further, I must mention that my husband works in the oil industry and has for 20 years. So when I read up on what this book would be about, I knew it would be oil field trash at its finest. Sure enough, by chapter 2 Jamison was horrified by the burning of gas off of wells. She wondered out loud if a paycheck was worth the environment. Well, Alex, you just rode on two airliners and drove an SUV (for two people) for an hour to get to YOUR paycheck, so I wondered the same thing. Rainbows and lollipops don’t fuel planes or vehicles. That bit of hypocrisy bothered me much, but hey, it’s just a book. I’ve much respect for Baldacci, so I continued. There are about 4 different plot lines, which I could get through. But what bothered me the most was that Amos didn’t feel like the same character. Baldacci has been careful to craft such an interesting character, but failed to really put his star player in the game. Lastly, I almost put the book down for good when I read this line from a character: “It violates the Geneva Conventions and opens up American soldiers to” basically being tortured by TERRORIST groups. Yes, because ISIS and Al Qaeda have morals too and really respect the Geneva Conventions. I work with many US Veterans that served in Iraq and Afghanistan that would surely disagree with this. Overall, this book was a fail for me. I hope that the next Amos Decker book will focus on him and his amazing capabilities and shorten the focus on just a couple of storylines so we can get quality and not quantity.