Rufus Harms has been in a military prison for 25 years of a life sentence for killing a young girl. But he's been having flashbacks, and remembers now what really happened. So he sends an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Michael Fiske, a Supreme Court clerk, finds the appeal, which doesn't follow the proper procedures and should be turned down, but something about it interests him, so he takes it with him to check it out. One of the calls he makes is to his semi-estranged brother John, who's an ex-cop turned defense lawyer.

Before John returns the call, though, Michael is killed, and Sarah Evans, the Supreme Court clerk Michael had proposed to shortly before his death, contacts him, and they begin an investigation that brings them closer together and deeper in danger.

I really enjoyed the conspiracy plot, but the backstory and the Supreme Court tutorial went on too long and interrupted the story too much. It was interesting, but it really wasn't part of the story.

The romance plot, too, bugged me in spots. I had a very hard time understanding why Michael would propose to Sarah, when they'd only dated casually and hadn't even slept together. I also had trouble believing that Sarah fell in love with John at first glance.

But overall, the complex conspiracy and John's complex character saved the story for me.

My first Baldacci book and I enjoyed it. It is a fast paced and easy read. Good for the beach, airplane or bedtime. The truncated chapters and simple sentences are appropriate for the impatient attention span of the Internet generation! I hope his marriage is better than the cold, calculating interaction between the sexes, though! I will try other Baldacci "brainbusters".

Book arrived in excellent condition. I have not had the time to read it but it is next.

thank you

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 and Saving Faith. He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.

First published in 1998 this is yet another winner for the author, whose books are consistently good and have well thought out plots and believable and well-rounded characters. Baldacci has established himself as one of the best suspense thriller writers around at the moment.

Rufus Harms is an old hand at prison, he should be, he has been rotting there for the last 25 years for the brutal killing of a young girl. The he receives a letter smuggled into the jail by his brother. It reveals that a possible massive miscarriage of justice has occurred, something that threatens to blow the justice of the Supreme Court wide open . . .

Quite a good story with interesting characters and a well-paced plot.

I did have a few nits with it, though. (Mainly because I've made the same mistakes in my own writing. ^_^) The main one was the constant subject-verb, subject-verb, subject-verb sentences. Quite a few times I noticed over half the sentences in any one paragraph beginning with "he," "she," and the like. And, of course, once I saw that, I couldn't un-see it, so it bothered me for the remainder of the book. In general, the writing is good, but a little more variety in sentence structure would have been wonderful.

And I felt bad for John for losing his brother before being able to become friends with him again. There's quite a gulf between me and my own brother that I doubt will ever be bridged, but seeing it from an outsider's perspective is sad.

I would definitely read this author again.