"The Fallen" by David Baldacci
"The Fallen." David Baldacci. 488 pages.
Amos and Alex sleuthing at the house across the street draws them, with the assent of local police, into a cauldron of area crime that involves multiple murders, life insurance fraud, pill pressing, and a treasure hunt for a long-forgotten gold stash.
I completed reading this book today.
Taking a well-deserved vacation break, FBI detective (not a Special Agent) Amos Decker accompanies his young partner, Alex Jamison, to her sister's home in economically beleaguered northwestern Pennsylvania to celebrate her eight-year-old niece's birthday.
The town is down, and out economically as erstwhile successful factories have closed. An opioid epidemic rage. And... during the young girl's birthday party, some flashing, crackling wiring in the house across the street from Alex's sister's house grabs Amos' attention.
Amos and Alex sleuthing at the house across the street draws them, with the assent of local police, into a cauldron of area crime that involves multiple murders, life insurance fraud, pill pressing, and a treasure hunt for a long-forgotten gold stash.
It's a bizarre case and one likely not easily solved by local police. Decker, who discovered the bodies of two missing DEA agents in the house across the street, gets drawn into a case only he, with his superior recall memory, and unparalleled detective experience, can solve.
It's not one of the one hundred books you have to read during your life. But it's a fast read. Good escape.
One finishes the read by thinking, "how did the author think up such a complex plot, and then write the denouement in an easily understandable way?"
The novel contains insight on life in contemporary rust belt America - Trump Country - how people try to survive in a down economy, and how, sometimes, reaching out to drugs and crime is the only palliative "forgotten Americans" see to help them forget about their economic ails.
Most of what I read is nonfiction... but, this novel provided a nice, fast, relaxing reading break as both a crime mystery and an informative review of one dark side of the American condition.