"Dick, I need a war."
Nicolas Creel is a man on a mission. He heads up the world's largest defense contractor, The Ares Corporation. Dick Pender is the man Creel retains to "perception manage" his company to even more riches by manipulating international conflicts. But Creel may have an even grander plan in mind.
Shaw, a man with no first name and a truly unique past, has a different agenda. Reluctantly doing the bidding of a secret multi-national intelligence agency, he travels the globe to keep it safe and at peace.
Willing to do anything to get back to the top of her profession, Katie James is a journalist who has just gotten the break of a lifetime: the chance to interview the sole survivor of a massacre that has left every nation stunned.
In this terrifying, global thriller, these characters' lives will collide head-on as a series of events is set in motion that could change the world as we know it.
--The Whole Truth
by David Baldacci
Copyright © 2008 by David Baldacci
Published by Grand Central Publishing
My Review
Defense contractor and multi-multi-millionaire Nicholas Creel is not happy. The world is seemingly at peace, no major wars going on, and that’s not good for business. He needs a war, so he has his perception manager, Dick Pender, start one. And start one he does. He plants false stories about the Russians and the rumors spread with the speed and efficiency you’d expect from our internet-driven society.
Shaw hears the stories, but he has other things on his mind. A kind of global policeman for a shadowy international agency, he travels the world to take care of problems, big or small, that might impact the global power balance. He’s very good at what he does, going into hairy situations that would get most people killed within the first two minutes and always manages to come out alive. He’s ready to retire so he can marry Anna Fischer, the love of his life, but his boss has a stranglehold on him that he cannot easily escape.
Katie James, an award winning journalist on a downward slide fueled by alcohol, happens upon Shaw as he attempts to take down a group of drug dealers in Scotland. Barely escaping with their lives, they go their separate ways, only to be reunited as they join forces to take down the man responsible for starting Cold War II.
Shaw hears the stories, but he has other things on his mind. A kind of global policeman for a shadowy international agency, he travels the world to take care of problems, big or small, that might impact the global power balance. He’s very good at what he does, going into hairy situations that would get most people killed within the first two minutes and always manages to come out alive. He’s ready to retire so he can marry Anna Fischer, the love of his life, but his boss has a stranglehold on him that he cannot easily escape.
Katie James, an award winning journalist on a downward slide fueled by alcohol, happens upon Shaw as he attempts to take down a group of drug dealers in Scotland. Barely escaping with their lives, they go their separate ways, only to be reunited as they join forces to take down the man responsible for starting Cold War II.
The story is marred by occasional cliché’d dialogue and implausible characters, but it also fast paced and full of action. The plot is both believable and unbelievable, in that you can’t believe something like this could really happen, and yet you’re afraid it really could. A good escapist read.
I give this story FOUR STARS.
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