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Editorial Review:
Many are the lawyers who have ditched the day job and had taken up an even more lucrative profession: that of writing thrillers. But of the army of hopefuls who have followed the example of John Grisham, few are as talented and inventive as David Baldacci, who (in such books as Simple Genius) has demonstrated a writing skill streets in advance of most of his career-shifting contemporaries. The Whole Truth continues his upward trajectory, and adds a new level of narrative complexity that still avoids getting in the way of sheer storytelling momentum.
Wealthy arms dealer Nicholas Creel is facing his own personal credit crunch, and needs to find a way to kickstart his business. Would starting a war help? Creel would hardly be averse to that. Anna Fischer is enjoying her professorial activities, but is growing dismayed at world events. Her life is transformed when her new lover proposes marriage -- but there is a side to her boyfriend's life that may threaten all she holds dear. Journalist Katie James is casting around for a way to salvage her stalled career, when something falls into her lap -- a story with very dangerous elements. And the mysterious Shaw, operative for a clandestine intelligence organisation, wants to give it all up -- but finds that an employer wants him to tackle one final all-important job.
As this very varied dramatis personae suggests, we are in the presence of an ambitious global thriller here, with a host of elements juggled to facilitate an ever-accelerating plot. Baldacci -- a writer who prefers the straight-ahead effect rather than the more nuanced touch -- is an absolute master of the blockbuster thriller, and as well as keeping the narrative on the boil, manages to delineate his cast of characters with a sure touch. The Whole Truth is Baldacci's most entertaining novel yet. --Barry Forshaw
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
Don't bother This book was terrible. The men are steel-hard, the women are sobbing and has tears in their eyes all the time. That's the deep characters. The other characters are plain cardboard copies. Such rubbish. And if it was a desk where you could return the book because it was so ill written and bad I would have done that!
Baldacci hits the spot with corruption thriller Consistenly readable Baldacci has excelled with this story about a global arms manufacturer who has to engineer a war due to lack of serious conflicts in the world. Some of the insights in to how and why decisions in arms procurement by governments are made are fascinating. Slightly veered off at the end for me but enjoyable nonetheless. Strong characters and easily hateable villans - great escapism for the tube ride.
Flashy, plastic and pointless I've found Baldacci's work to be variable in the past - some of them can make a long journey fly as well though-out and well written thrillers. Others are distinctly unmemorable. This is by some distance the worst I've read.
The whole thing is basically ludicrous and not recovered by a thoroughly predictable plot. One single unexpected thing happens in the whole book - from that point on you could write the rest of the story and be spot on. The characters are plastic and unconvincing; the idiot-level... more info
Fast paced: best to suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride The Whole Truth is a thriller about the head of a weapons manufacturing company (Nicolas Creel) who hires a perception management company to plant false information about Russian atrocities, with the aim of creating a Cold War between Russia and China that will cause all the world's superpowers to increase defense spending. At the same time, we are introduced to our hero Shaw, who works for an unnamed and mysterious international law enforcement agency. Shaw's fiancee, Anna, has suspicions about the false... more info
