Stone Cold

STONE COLD is a continuation from DAVID BALDACCI'S earlier works The Collectors and The Camel Club which are both worth reading. As for STONE COLD, the speed of this thriller is incredible as both subplots move out at an extraordinary pace yet the key players seem fully developed and plausible especially Harry and the CAMEL CLUB members. Both Oliver and Annabelle recognize the problems they respectively face as each knows they are in trouble, but in some ways welcome the confrontation. Underlying this strong thriller is a caution that government secrets are rarely security issues, but more likely the hiding of embarrassments usually caused by a lack of adequate checks and balances on arrogant imperial power!!! I would also recommend, if you missed reading TINO GEORGIOU'S masterpiece--THE FATES, go and read it. With fascinating and brilliantly created characters in `THE FATES' coupled with two intertwining plots makes for a completely enjoyable and page-turning read.

Pulsates with Fast-Paced, Plot-Driven Power (0/1 people found this helpful)

If you liked either The Camel Club or The Collectors, don't miss this book!

If you haven't read The Camel Club or The Collectors, read those books before this one.

Stone Cold is an exciting and major step forward in the plot development of the Camel Club series as Oliver Stone and Annabelle Conroy deal with deadly challenges and old demons. In Stone Cold, the Camel Club moves from focusing on quirky to being operationally driven by the tools and tradecraft of assassins. The title appears to be an attempt to capture the psychology of the professional assassin, someone who is effective because he brings no emotion to terminating life. In keeping with Mr. Baldacci's ability to define and beautifully develop new characters, you'll be fascinated by the new character, Harry Finn, who tests for terrorist vulnerabilities as a profession, is a loving husband and father, and moonlights in assassinating assassins to settle an old score.

The novel has three main story lines: Finn's quest to eliminate old enemies, Annabelle Conroy's efforts to avoid being crushed by Jerry Bagger (the man she conned out of forty million dollars in The Collectors), and Oliver Stone's attempt to stay out of the public eye as someone chooses to expose his old connections to the CIA. I found this worked well for making the story fast-paced and continually surprising because the stories interweave.

But ultimately the appeal of this book is that it brings a lot of resolution to past and current conflicts in the series.

The only thing I didn't like about the book was that it lacked most of the usual quirkiness of the characters and past plots. Instead, this book is more of a standard spy versus spy, crook versus crook, and government against the bad guys type of story. But it's quite good for what it is. I hope the quirkiness doesn't disappear after this story.

After you read this story, think about where you have followed orders . . . orders that you should have questioned. What orders should you be questioning now?

Stone delivers (3/5 people found this helpful)

I enjoyed the original Camel Club and even more so the Collectors so awaited this eagerly especially as it was set up with Bagger seeking revenge on Annabelle.

This book is a departure from traditional Baldacci style and I thought moves more mainstream to Patterson. The chapters are short and numerous, and the plot quickly flowing but with less depth. The characters are not developed sufficiently other than Stone who indeed takes centre stage as on a mission to rectify previous orders given by the government (great Jason Bourne/ Jack Reacher stuff I might add). Particularly dissapointing is Annabelle who does not seem as strong willed as portrayed well in The Collectors.

However, this is more a statement than a critisism and I enjoyed the book, immensely. I highly recommended it for those who appreciate the Camel Club, but perhaps a litle isoteric as a standalone read.

The Camel Club gets a bit darker (13/16 people found this helpful)

This is the third in the Camel Club series. A series that started off very light-hearted and got more serious as it has moved on. The author has also taken the focus off many of the characters to focus on just two or three and almost as much time is given to the main bad guy, an ex-special forces operator who is killing ex intelligence agents.

No light touch in this one and the author is comfortable with the characters and the supporting players. The plot blends the back-story of Annabel as her past starts to catch up and likewise with Stone his past also starts to come back to haunt him and he has to decide how to protect those he cares for.

This is an efficient thriller and possibly the best of the Camel Club books. No classic but good enough to keep you well entertained for a few hours.

Third in the Camel Club Series (13/27 people found this helpful)

David Baldacci attended law school at the University of Virginia, and went on to work as a trial lawyer, and later as a corporate lawyer, in Washington, D.C. He is now a full-time writer whose best selling novels include Absolute Power, Total Control, The Winner, The Simple Truth and Saving Faith. He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.

The publication date of a new David Baldacci novel is for me a cause for celebration and if the said novel is one of the Camel Club series, well I wouldn't exactly be doing backwards somersaults, but you know what I mean. I enjoyed the first two in the series so much that I was almost afraid that Stone Cold would not live up to my expectations and this is from someone who is not really into crime thrillers.

Well to be honest, I was a little disappointed, maybe I had hyped it up too much in my own mind. It was still a good read but not as good as I had expected. Maybe it was the fact that it was revisiting an old plot, I'm not sure. Oliver Stone and the Camel Club are back and this new novel revisits Casino king Jerry Bagger, who appeared in The Collectors. Yes he's the guy who was conned out of millions of dollars by Annabelle Conroy. She managed to set up one of the most outrageous scams ever pulled on any casino. The owners of casinos know all of the dodges ever invented for conning them out of their money and they also have the most sophisticated equipment, cameras etc. to stop this kind of thing happening, but Bagger didn't see this one coming.

Well Bagger is now hunting Annabelle and if he catches up with her it isn't going to be pretty. It is going to take all the resources of the Camel Club to keep Annabelle safe and maybe even that isn't going to be enough . . .

David Baldacci

Reader Reviews:

STONE COLD is a continuation from DAVID BALDACCI'S earlier works (0/0 people found this helpful)

Pulsates with Fast-Paced, Plot-Driven Power (0/1 people found this helpful)

Stone delivers (3/5 people found this helpful)

The Camel Club gets a bit darker (13/16 people found this helpful)

Third in the Camel Club Series (13/27 people found this helpful)

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