...sequel to The Camel Club (2005), renegade CIA agent Roger Seagraves has set himself up in the business of freelance assassination and selling our country's secrets to the highest bidder.

---

Product Description

People are dropping dead in Washington, D.C. First the Speakerof the House falls victim to a hitman in a carefully orchestrated murder infront of dozens of the city's power elite. Next, the director of theLibrary of Congress's Rare Books Room dies in a book vault, but no oneknows how. Caleb Shaw, Camel Club member, nearly falls victim, too. Acrossthe country, a gifted con woman assembles an A-list team to pull off one ofthe most audacious scams ever, against one of the most dangerous men in theworld. When the worlds of Washington and the elite con collide head-on, theCamel Club finds itself teamed with a person they don't really trust butwhose skill helps them unravel a secret that threatens to bring America toits knees.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64828 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-18
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 438 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In bestseller Baldacci's entertaining if overly long sequel to The Camel Club (2005), renegade CIA agent Roger Seagraves has set himself up in the business of freelance assassination and selling our country's secrets to the highest bidder. The Camel Club, a group of four dysfunctional crime solvers headed by ex-CIA assassin Caleb Shaw, becomes involved with Seagraves through a killing at the Library of Congress, where one of the club members works. Meanwhile, an enigmatic young woman, Annabelle Conroy, is assembling a team to engineer a "long con," a $33 million scam targeting Jerry Bagger, the sleazy owner of an Atlantic City casino. This time around, Baldacci wisely tones down the wackiness of the club members, focusing instead on bringing Seagraves to justice while Annabelle works her ingenious scam. The splicing of the two plots is problematic, but Baldacci sacrifices a bit of believability to cobble together a new cast of characters destined to continue fighting the forces of evil in the next installment. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Bestselling author David Baldacci reprises THE CAMEL CLUB, a slightly wacky group of overage crime-stoppers in Washington, DC, led by Caleb Shaw, a former CIA assassin. Their efforts to investigate the mysterious deaths of a prestigious librarian and the Speaker of the House eventually overlap with another story line--this one about sassy con artist Annabelle Conroy. The multivoiced narration provides needed definition for many of the characters but seems awkward accompanied by the author's stilted dialogue tags. Aimee Jolson depicts a smooth and confident Conroy, while L.J. Ganser and Richard Mover cover the male characters and the narration. Overall, this is a modestly entertaining sequel, thanks mostly to the fast-moving plot. N.M.C. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
The four disillusioned, aging gentlemen featured in Baldacci's 2005 best-seller, The Camel Club, are back in this engaging offering. The ringleader of the eccentric Washington, D.C., group (comprising obsessive-compulsive computer-whiz Milton Farb, decorated Vietnam vet Rueben Rhodes, and slightly rumpled library-scholar Caleb Shaw) is an ex-CIA conspiracy theorist who goes by the pseudonym Oliver Stone. All are reunited when Shaw's boss, the Library of Congress' director of Rare Books and Special Collections, is found dead. (Might he have been killed for possession of a rare collection of Puritan psalms?) Meanwhile, a few hundred miles away, sexy scam artist Annabelle Conroy avenges her mother's death with a fiendishly clever con pulled on a nefarious Atlantic City casino magnate. Though his two plots converge in a rather contrived way, Baldacci delivers crisp, economical prose and a cast of spies, misfits, and assassins that would make even the most patriotic citizen question the American political system. The best of the characters include gorgeous, gutsy newcomer Annabelle and the wonderfully idiosyncratic Stone, who spends many a day camped out on the lawn across from the White House with a sign that says, "I want the truth." Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

---

Customer Reviews

Amateurish narrative and on-the-nose dialogue.
This is the first Baldacci novel I've read, and I have to say I was surprised by the ham-handed narrative and dialogue. Every plot twist had to be immediately (and sometimes repeatedly) summarized and explained as if readers are incapable of making intelligent inferences. It was more like having someone retell a novel than reading it yourself. The plot was not as tight as I would expect from a NYT best selling author, but good execution can compensate for a pedestrian plot. This book lacked in both areas.

Excellent read - couldn't put it down!
I bought this book for my husband many months ago, and just picked it up from his shelf to look at as a summer read. After two chapters, I couldn't put it down! Very well written, interesting, entertaining, and I love the cliff-hanger end. My next read will be The Camel Club.

fun fast pace read
I enjoy the book and really enjoy the crazy characters. It wasn't as good as "Simple Truth" or "The Winner", but still a fun read.