Ron Wallenfang

Long Road to Mercy - 2018 - Chronologically the first Atlee Pine story. Pine is a mid 30s FBI agent manning a one agent office near the Grand Canyon rim, and as such has initial FBI responsibility for all or much of the canyon. She is tall and also strong, having just missed the US Olympic team in one or more events highlighting strength. Thus we are alerted to the likelihood of some tough physical encounters ahead. She is aided by an older secretary named Carol Blum, who has raised six children and is a very smart, efficient and able secretary, who can contribute to Pine’s professional achievements, and also function as a confidante. The story starts out with an incident I find irritating. Pine has or had a twin sister named Mercy, who was abducted and perhaps murdered when they were six or seven years old. A big time mass murderer in life imprisonment has confessed to killing her and Pine goes there to get information, including in her mind whether she is even dead. We move from there to unrelated events and never again come back to Pine’s sister, until the last page of the book As it happens, I have been reading Baldacci’s books not chronologically but mostly alphabetically and have read a downstream book about the twin. I am somewhat annoyed that Baldacci has planted a totally unrelated story at the beginning of this book that relates only to a book that was to be written later. This opening causes idle speculation with no hope of enlightenment and doesn't belong here. That said, the book is classic Baldacci. It starts small, with the murder of a mule on the floor of the canyon and the disappearance of its rider. Step-by-step, it escalates to add characters and complications that stretch the limits of plausibility, as Baldacci often does. There are complications and conflicts within the FBI, with other US government agencies and private entities, and foreign intrigues. The ultimate threat is big time.