Rating: 
Summary: Good Action Yarn Built on a Silly Plot
Review: Baldacci really drew me into the plot in spite of boring me to tears with his idealization of the F.B.I. Hostage Rescue Team. That's quite a feat. The trick was trying to figure out who was behind the massacre of the hero's HRT unit and why. It all came together at the end. Too bad it turned out to be so silly.All in all, if you have the time to read all 640 pages and don't mind an implausible plot, the book is entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: a decent adventure story
Review: I like Baldacci's work, generally, but this one seemed a bit redundant inasmuch as the plot centers around two main characters that seem almost to be clones of similar protagonists in his other novels. His female characters are professional women of strong character and intelligence, who nevertheless, must eventually fall back upon the no-nonsense, macho male to save their bacon. But that aside, the book does offer some interesting sidebars to the main plot and although Baldacci misses the mark a bit on some of his research, there is a building suspense toward the final chapters that does draw one in so you absolutely must find out what happens. I have enjoyed his previous work a bit more, but this is not to say this particular book is not good, it is an entertaining read and moves along quite well. Although this reviewer prefers more introspection and depth in the characters of a novel, it is easy to fill in the gaps with one's imagination as the main players are not overly complicated. I would reccommend this book to readers who are mostly aficianados of law enforcement-type books as the HRT (Hard Response Team) plays a major role in the plot and we learn more than we probably really wanted to know about it's inner organization and workings. -
Rating: 
Summary: Another page turner
Review: Web London is a tough guy - a member of the Hostage Rescue Team, the best of the best. And yet, going into a routine mission, he simply froze. And the rest of his team died in an ambush. He makes it his mission to find out what really happened. Throw in numberous obstacles, betrayals from unlikely sources, tough guys and gunpower... An excellent page turner and a highly recommended book. (sorry, no plot details). By the way, my favourite (briefly appearing) character is Angie, a fellow HRT's wife, who scares the living daylights out of the best of them.
Rating: 
Summary: A surprisingly good story
Review: I have to confess that when a co-worker lent me the tapes for Last Man Standing, I was prepared to dislike it. It's not my genre. And it was so long. To my surprise, I found it engrossing and at the end, I had enjoyed it. Admittedly it is a guy's book. High-powered guns and cars, beautiful women (although mostly rather prim and proper) and heroic deeds by both Web London (the protagonist) and his friends. The villains are evil, for the most part, and there are plenty of them. The only thing approaching a mystery is whether London is one of the good guys or a bad one. However, given the number of villains, it is difficult to sort out which ones might have set London up. Jason Culp the narrator, does a creditable job of differentiating between various characters, without being hokey. Although the ending is a bit sad, and has a couple of surprises, it is satisfying. Those readers who enjoy techno-thrillers, such as Tom Clancy's work, will probably enjoy this one. Readers of police procedurals and thrillers will probably enjoy it too.
Rating:
Summary: Last Man Standing
Review: Web London roars into a dark alley one night with his FBI Hostage Rescue Team. Seconds later, the team is ambushed & every man is dead--except Web. As the FBI conducts their investigation, the suspicion surrounding Web deepens. Now, he needs help from an unlikely ally in his desperate search for the killer of his friends, & finds himself up against a force determined to finish the job that began in the alley--killing the seventh & sole surviving member of Charlie Team, Web London.
Rating:
Summary: Action-filled book!
Review: David Baldacci has created an interesting character in Web London, an FBI specialist in hostage recovery. He is tough and smart, but also strangely vulnerable because of incidents from his childhood which he has repressed. At the beginning of the book, he participates in a raid where he is the only survivor from the elite Charlie Company of which he is an integral part. His survival guilt drives him to discover who is behind the massacre and why he froze up and thus did not enter the area where the killing occurred. He is helped by Clair Daniels, a beautiful divorcee who also happens to be a psychiatrist. The plot has a satisfying number of twists and turns and is complex enough to take several chapters to unfold at the end. This book has both an interesting plot and a complex hero which makes for a very good read.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing special.
Review: Nothing special and a little disappointing because there were no surprising twists. Not his best work. I expected the story would be similar to the movie by this name but it was a totally different story. Long, long, long audio book...and the second last tape was defective and I had to get a replacement from Amazon, which was very annoying.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad but falls at the last fence...
Review: FBI agent left as only survivor of an ambush tries to find the truth behind the incident.
Very pacy story with a good background on Hostage Rescue (the author had help from Chris Whitcombe in this area) this book only lets itself down in the last fifth where too many co-incidences and links come together rather too quickly.
Okay there is some dialogue that is weak but although some of the twists were a little signposted, some of them do still surprise. This is not an exceptional book, but if you like the authors previous works then I suspect you will like this one too.
Rating: 
Summary: UGH!
Review: Laughable dialogue, outlandish plot, zero-dimensional characters, pc run amuck and no editing. My favorite howler involved a blindfolded woman in a dark room who had her blindfold removed and then had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the dark. And one more reference to the hero's "issues" would have driven me over the edge. Take this book! Please!
Rating:
Summary: Where was the editor?
Review: Boy, does this book need a good editor! It needs to lose at least 200 pages of more than we need to know exposition. There is a good story, but it takes too long for it to get going.
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