Product Description

Sidney Archer has been living the perfect life--a loving husband, adorable daughter, and a successful career at a major Washington law firm. Suddenly, her husband is killed in a fiery plane crash, and her life is shattered. But the nightmare is just beginning: the FBI believes that her husband was responsible for the crash, and that he is still alive. Did he betray his wife and country? The hunt is on for Jason Archer--and the startling truth which threatens to destroy the country's most powerful individual. Ads in "People". 5-city author tour.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7243 in Books
• Published on: 1997-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 720 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780446604840
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
released in February 1997.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Sidney Archer is devastated when she hears that the plane carrying her husband to Los Angeles has crashed. But her nightmare begins when she learns he'd traded identities and flown to Seattle instead. Evidence suggests that Jason Archer was selling corporate secrets to a high-tech rival. Soon Sidney herself is caught in a web of intrigue as wealthy men vie for more power and money. Fired from her law firm, pursued by hired killers eager to recover an encrypted computer disk Jason had mailed to himself, Sydney finally trusts only the FBI agent who believes her innocent. No one is immune here from high-tech snooping and violent death. Baldacci writes strictly for action, not wasting time developing characters or setting. Few books have higher heaps of dead millionaires at their conclusion. The scant literary value won't deter those who snatched up his first book, the best-selling Absolute Power (LJ 11/15/95), or keep them from standing in line to see the film version, due in February. Public libraries will need a copy or two to meet demand, especially with a major publicity blitz planned.
-?Kathy Piehl, Mankato State Univ. Minn.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Baldacci burst on the thriller scene with Absolute Power (1995), which stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for more than four months. Total Control is even more suspenseful, and it is also far more interesting in terms of the questions it raises about how much technology controls us. Baldacci's ruthless characters wield the latest in action weaponry, laptops, and cell phones. Everyone still carries guns, but they're fighting over computer disks and trying to outsmart each other with frantically typed e-mail. Except for a sabotaged airliner that hits the ground with enough impact to practically disintegrate, creating a huge crater in rural Virginia and killing a couple of hundred innocent people, and a bunch of vicious murders, all the crime is online, involving the stealing of top-secret financial documents pertaining to high-tech companies with names such as Triton and CyberCom. Baldacci's heroes are also a mix of the old and the new: a bighearted FBI guy and a beautiful, high-powered attorney who really just wants to stay home and take care of the kids. Maybe so, but when her husband disappears, Sidney Archer transforms herself from corporate deal-maker into a gun-toting momma with a sure shot and enough smarts to outmaneuver her very angry, very evil assailants. Good and slick. Donna Seaman

Customer Reviews

TOTAL ENJOYMENT
My first introduction to David Baldacci was back in 1996 when People Magazine picked his first book, Absolute Power, as the "Page Turner of the Week". I thought the premise of that book was phenomenal and I became an immediate fan. For some reason, I skipped over Total Control and went on to read his third and fourth books, The Winner and The Simple Truth. Both were good reads but nothing compared to Absolute Power. I'm glad I went back and read Total Control because it's in true Baldacci form in my opinion.

In this offering, Baldacci takes the typical American family, Sidney and Jason Archer and their little daughter Amy, and pits them against corporate greed at its worst. Sidney (the wife with a man's name) is a corporate attorney. Jason, the husband, is an executive with a technology company. Since Sidney is working on a deal that will merge her husband's company with another major technology firm, she is privy to many things that could lead to trouble. Jason, on the other hand, is struggling to make more money so that his wife can become a stay-at-home mom to their daughter. While this concept is characteristic of many American families, sometimes this drive can lead to a downward spiral of events from which there is no return. When Jason disappears, it is up to Sidney to try to clear his name while trying to save her own job at the same time. This book is replete with all the scenarios that followers of the thriller genre have come to expect. There's a plane crash, a car chase, espionage, kidnapping, phone-tapping and the usual sinister characters you find in most of Baldacci's books.

I read most of this book on the plane traveling from Minnesota to Philadelphia. It never seems to fail that when I'm flying, I'm usually reading a book that involves a plane crash. The good thing about this book is that it is so fast-paced that I arrived at my destination without even realizing I had been in the air over three hours. If you're looking for something that is suspenseful and believable, I think you'd enjoy this one. I'd like to add that as I looked around to see what other people on the plane were reading, I was not surprised to see other readers with Baldacci titles in their hands. I guess he's come a long way since that first book back in 1996. Kudos to you David Baldacci for your well-deserved success.

Would make a great silent movie
Interesting idea, but oddly written. I'm not talking grammar and syntax, like some other reviewers. I refer to the over-the-top style. Everything is a crisis!!! On every page characters are wincing or gimacing, their throats are constricting, they cannot breathe. I spent a lot of my time rolling my eyes. Why didn't I just put it down? Good question- it is just compelling enough to keep turning those pages.

Absolutely Dynamite!
I am recommending this book to all my friends who love a real heart-pounding thriller. I refused to put this book down until I finished it...Total Control has all the verve and excitement of Absolute Power but is infinitely more intriguing. The high-tech aspect of this novel was well researched. I love Baldacci�s treatment of his women characters: in Sidney Archer he has created a smart, determined and savvy tigress who exhibits extraordinary resolve and courage in her quest to find out about her husband�s surprising death. She is as adept at dealing with hired hit men as she is with slick corporate lawyers. The plot itself is a rather convoluted maze with enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing about the next plot line: chapter by chapter. This is pure David Baldacci. There is no filler here. If you want to read an exciting novel that holds your interest with each page this is it.