The Innocent by David BaldacciMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Jacket Blurb: America has enemies - ruthless people that the police, the FBI, even the military can't stop. That's when the U.S. government calls on Will Robie, a stone cold hitman who never questions orders and always nails his target. But Will Robie may have just made the first - and last - mistake of his career...
It begins with a hit gone wrong. Robie is dispatched to eliminate a target unusually close to home in Washington, D.C. But something about this mission doesn't seem right to Robie, and he does the unthinkable. He refuses to kill. Now, Robie becomes a target himself and must escape from his own people.
Fleeing the scene, Robie crosses paths with a wayward teenage girl, a fourteen-year-old runaway from a foster home. But she isn't an ordinary runaway -- her parents were murdered, and her own life is in danger. Against all of his professional habits, Robie rescues her and finds he can't walk away. He needs to help her.
Even worse, the more Robie learns about the girl, the more he's convinced she is at the center of a vast cover-up, one that may explain her parents' deaths and stretch to unimaginable levels of power.
Now, Robie may have to step out of the shadows in order to save this girl's life... and perhaps his own.
Read as an audio book.
This started out fairly strong and engaging, then mid-way through I kinda lost interest and didn't pick it up for over a week and only returned to it when I had a four hour round trip drive to a meeting and was kept engaged to the finish.
For myself, part of the mid-book dis-interest was I could see where a major sub plot was going. For the sake of spoilers I won't get into specifics. Plus that way you get to figure it out for yourself. But, as it were, yes, a big fat "this can end only one way"situation.
Another factor to my lack of interest was Julie, the young protagonist which part of the plot revolves around. This could be attributed to the narrator's performance in which she quite aptly captures a 14 year old girl's whine, petulance, and attitude which, ultimately, grated on my nerves. So an added bit of realism to the story.
The story itself bounced between moderately realistic and completely unbelievable, but that too is the point. Shear escapism. Reading about somebody else,s problems so you don't have to think about that crummy work day. However, I do prefer some realism in my escape-ism unless it's urban fantasy. By the time the whole plot was explained at the conclusion, and it was truly explained because it was quite convoluted, I was shaking my head. The impetus of the whole chain of events was just...unbelievable.
So I'm not certain where I stand on this series. I quite enjoy the two narrators (they do quite a few of Baldacci's books). I liked Will Robie. I liked Agent Vance. Julie was an interesting dynamic that spent most of her time getting shuffled around. I enjoyed how Will was working with agencies and not going rogue on the outside. But the ending left me rolling my eyes and uncertain if I want to pick up the next book.
Recommended...with reservations.
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