WOW! Great read/ ( )

Cracker of a book!!!
Spy, intrigue and action! ( )

The Sixth Man is a thriller from beginning to end. There are good guys and bad guys. But who is who? King and Maxwell make a heartwarming pair. There are some extraordinary settings that our heroes King and Maxwell have to escape from but all in all the book is just a good solid story. Five stars were given in this review because there are just not a lot of books that can compete. ( )

First edition as new

First and last book I will ever read by Baldacci. It was an incredibly fast read because there is nothing to slow one down. It is frictionless. If one subtracts the plot from the novel the amount of character left wouldn't fill a thimble. Moreover, each character other than fulfilling different plot requirements is emotionally undifferentiated. The writing is like standing in church beside a monotone who belts with gusto.

Is it really this bad. Pretty much. It is the corollary of a child's connect-the-dots piece of art--a connect-the-dots novel. Each chapter is a little plot blurb that is then fleshed out. Each chapter ends either with a snarky comeback or some vague and completely unmoving emotional exchange between persons.

What did I learn? Maybe a few interesting tidbits about the ballistic characteristics of certain rounds.

Finally, I thought the ending might at least come off with some small amount of subtlety because everything was already so incredibly obvious. But no, Baldacci has to go for an American Idol ending, reaching for the emotional stars in the final scenes as a female lead character who, for all intents and purposes was never alive, hovers between life and death, so much so that it is hard to distinguish her living state from her coma.

Would I write this stuff? Probably, if I could make the money Baldacci makes But I would be debilitatingly embarrassed. I would use a pseudonym and wear long baggy coats and sunglasses to book readings with paste on beards. I would sneak into my extraordinarily large apartment/home under the cover of darkness. In private, I would likely mortify my flesh with a pen.

I guess that any reading is better than no reading and that this must fulfill some need to read. But, lord, please, please save me in my dotage from deriving any pleasure from the likes of this. Better to watch daytime TV.

My heartfelt apologies to Mr. Baldacci. I have tried to write. I do know how f'ing hard it is, and I do not think I am very good at it. But one has to raise one's muzzle a good bit higher than this and at a target a lot further down range before pulling the trigger or else one simply derives whatever pleasure results from a contact wound bullseye.

Finally, this is private and a pretty accurate take for what I think. I would never release such as this into public view while an author is living because I could just never do that. And, as I said, because of how hard it is to write--anything. The work that goes into a novel must be respected even if the work itself is not. ( )