Memory Man by David BaldacciMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Jacket Blurb: Amos Decker's life changed forever--twice.
The first time was on the gridiron. A big, towering athlete, he was the only person from his hometown of Burlington ever to go pro. But his career ended before it had a chance to begin. On his very first play, a violent helmet-to-helmet collision knocked him off the field for good, and left him with an improbable side effect--he can never forget anything.
The second time was at home nearly two decades later. Now a police detective, Decker returned from a stakeout one evening and entered a nightmare--his wife, young daughter, and brother-in-law had been murdered.
His family destroyed, their killer's identity as mysterious as the motive behind the crime, and unable to forget a single detail from that horrible night, Decker finds his world collapsing around him. He leaves the police force, loses his home, and winds up on the street, taking piecemeal jobs as a private investigator when he can.
But over a year later, a man turns himself in to the police and confesses to the murders. At the same time a horrific event nearly brings Burlington to its knees, and Decker is called back in to help with this investigation. Decker also seizes his chance to learn what really happened to his family that night. To uncover the stunning truth, he must use his remarkable gifts and confront the burdens that go along with them. He must endure the memories he would much rather forget. And he may have to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Read as an audio book.
I greatly enjoyed this book. This is a "new to me" series I've read the author before) and it hit everything that *I* like to see in a mystery: solid writing, interesting and flawed characters, an engaging plot, and no romance. Yup. No romance. I am SO tired of authors/screen writers sticking in a romance for romance sake. Most mysteries/thrillers that I read stick in some kind of love interest (guy beds gal, gal is gone by next book, guy is sad, repeat...), the latest batch of super hero movies all have love interests (even Wonder Woman wasn't immune), and I see it in many of the current batch of scifi books.
But I greatly digress. This had no romance and for that I was very grateful and I enjoyed the book all that much more for it.
Amos Decker. Victim of a freak football accident that forever altered his memory and recall leaving him with hyperthymesia and synesthesia, his family brutally murdered, he's barely scraping by as a PI after climbing out of being jobless, homeless and broken. Decker now finds himself pulled into helping the local police department solve a mass shooting at the local high school, and the more Amos uncovers, the more he realizes this is personal.
Amos is a rather refreshing character in many ways: he is tragically flawed, he's out of shape, his social skills are all but gone, he has a bitter past, and can't forget a single thing. That memory flaw (as Amos would see it) was one tiny complaint, and I do mean tiny complaint with the book. It was almost as if the author took Robert Puller (from the John Puller series #1-4) and said, "What would happen if I took everything that made Robert great, but made the character tragic?" I have to admit, when I heard the setting was adjacent to a military base, I thought of the John Puller series.
The synesthesia was rather interesting, but I felt it got lost in the rest of the story. Amos mentioned several times about seeing marching "threes" bristling with knives, but then nothing came of it and there was no further mention or resolution to these threatening colored numbers.
My other objection was with the lady journalist (whose name has slipped my mind). I really wasn't seeing what she was providing to the overall plot, other than to have someone for Decker to talk to. I also got the feeling that her part in the conclusion was to set her and Decker up for future books.
Overall, I was thoroughly engaged during my morning and evening commute. I'll be looking for the next in the series.
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