Total Control

Rating:
Summary: Im Impressed
Review: I was very impressed with David Baldacci's second attempt to write a non-fiction novel. Total Control remained at a fast pace and really kept my attention. Though I must say that the rating probably would have been better if Baldacci left some of the computer junk out of it! Please feel free to e-mail me with your opinion on this novel and many mor

Rating:
Summary: a disappointment after Absolute Power
Review: I found this book a disappointment after thoroughly enjoying Absolute Power. Mr.Baldacci is a very good story teller and easy to read but I just didn't find this story believable. I never really cared what happened to some of the main characters in this book because they always made ridiculous decisions. I just hope book #3 jumps back to the standards of Absolute Power.

Rating:
Summary: sweet as sugar
Review: THis book is the business. Baldacci is the MAN

Rating:
Summary: Totally Impressive!!!!!
Review: Who'd have thought that he could top his last book called, "Absolute Power"? But David did it!! This one is even better. There is more of the mystery element in this one-a real "who-done-it". Can't we rate a book as an 11 and 1/2?! The question of "who-done-it" will keep you hopping through a whole host of suspects. the key characters in this one are the kind that you just hope will return in the next book like Jonathon Kellerman's Alex Delaware or Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta. David Baldacci writes a better intrigue than Grisham and consistently writes them so that they are impossible to put down. Even his Author's Note's in the back of the book are great!!! I, too, can't wait until the third book!! I wonder if this one will become a movie, too? It would certainly make a great one!

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining.
Review: But too many loopholes. Give me Ludlum, Forsyth, Clancy, or Le Carre anytime

Rating:
Summary: I DIDN'T WANT TO PUT IT DOWN-BUT I HAD TO SLEEP SOMETIME!!
Review: I LOVED HIS FIRST BOOK AND WASN'T DISAPPOINTED WITH HIS SECOND. I,TOO, CAN'T WAIT FOR HIS NEXT BOOK. DAVID BALDACCI IS ON MY LIST OF GREAT MYSTERY WRITERS!

Rating:
Summary: Totally, Absolutely, Fabulous.
Review: Absolute Power was an extremely hard act for Baldacci to follow, but he totally succeeded in creating another page-turner with surprise plot twists and great characterizations.Can't wait for his next novel - my guess is the title will be "Complete" something

Rating:
Summary: AWESOME
Review: Simply put- could not put it down. Read it!

Rating:
Summary: Groaners every page
Review: This book was difficult to get through. The writing felt very, well, written. Imagine an FBI agent talking for fifteen minutes while apprehending a bad guy. Imagine this same agent uttering such phrases as "this weapon should evidence your homocidal intent" and other such phony and cacaphonic tripe, and you will only begin to understand how silly this book is.

Baldacci comes across like a librarian in an argyle sweater trying to write tough "zingers" on every page. He has no idea how real people might talk in dangerous circumstances, so he tries to overcompensate with embarassing results. I personally blushed or groaned nearly every page at his feminine rage being spewed out in dialogue and descriptions that miss the mark in every conceievable fashion.

Add to this the idiocy of the main character--acting in ways both too stupid and too intelligent to be any real protagonist, and the contrivances of plot needed to milk this meager theme for hundreds of pages, and you see the frustrating experience it is to read the work.

I shall regale you with one more fine example of the action scenes--when Sydney has met with a "deadly" [Baldacci's thesaurus apparently has only two words: deadly and murderous] intruder in her home, Sydney has a weapon trained on him at near-point blank range when he suddenly catapults into a swan dive behind the couch! "Milliseconds" before she can fire, he launches himself behind the couch.

Is this "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?" No, just Baldacci sipping cups of cocoa on doilies trying to make up action sequences before returning to his needlepoint.

Rating:
Summary: It'd be better if...
Review: Albeit this is not the best Baldacci's book is a readable one, the first pages are heavy as lead though, but if you go through the first 150 or so pages the rest of the book is good enough to end it. You can also skip the part when the book explains how the economy works and what happen if the interest rate gets up or down. Maybe you will have to be in mood to read this one but at the end of it you will not regret reading it.
I think this book'd be better if were written after the WTC massacre.