If you’re craving a political thriller that holds your attention from beginning to end, then David Baldacci’s “The Camel Club” is the book for you.
“The Camel Club” is set in Washington, D.C., the scene of the author’s first best-seller, 1996’s “Absolute Power.”
Baldacci’s latest novel draws its title from a group of four middle-aged misfits who regularly meet to discuss what they believe to be political conspiracies.
It becomes all too real for Oliver Stone – a former Special Forces soldier who has taken the name of the irreverent film director – and his friends when they witness the late-night murder of Patrick Johnson, a National Threat Assessment Center employee, on an island in the middle of the Potomac River.
Stone, who served his country proudly before completely losing faith in its leaders, founded the Camel Club to scrutinize those in power and raise the public cry when members believe things have gone awry.
He now makes a meager living as the caretaker of a small cemetery, and keeps vigil outside the White House, watching and observing.
The Camel Club also includes a rare-books specialist, a designer of corporate Web sites and a former Defense Intelligence Agency employee. Each has very personal reasons not to trust the federal government.
Secret Service agent Alex Ford, who is a casual friend of Stone, becomes involved in the investigation of Johnson’s death, which officials say is a suicide.
Although “The Camel Club” is filled with too much political exposition that is passed off as conversation, Stone and his colleagues are refreshingly human, burdened as they are by their past histories and current maladies.
Baldacci comes up with a surprising twist as he skillfully cuts back and forth among various subplots, bringing “The Camel Club” to a doozy of an ending.
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