Absolute Power-in which a thief finds himself accidentally connected to a murder involving the president and the ensuing coverup-was hardly Irvingesque but it did begin Baldacci's friendly relationship with the bestseller lists, which has continued over his writing career.īaldacci's style is brief and plot-driven, but he's not afraid to linger on macabre and vivid details, such as a rosary clenched in a plane crash victim's hand, or hard-learned lessons from a sniper's life (pack your food so you can find it at night, by touch). Semi-innocents, at least: small players who often don't realize they're players at all end up hunting down answers, and their hunt becomes the reader's.Īccording to Baldacci, reading John Irving's The World According to Garp convinced him that he wanted to be a novelist. While his stories hinge on the complex machinations behind the presidency, the FBI, the Supreme Court and other spheres of influence, Baldacci (a former Washington, D.C.-based attorney) finds his way into a mystery through the eyes of the innocents.

Education-B.A., Virginia Commonwealth University J.D.,ĭavid Baldacci's authoritative legal thrillers operate on the irresistible notion that a sinister undercurrent threads through the country's most powerful institutions.

Now, Robie may have to step out of the shadows in order to save this girl's life.and perhaps his own.

He needs to help her.Įven worse, the more Robie learns about the girl, the more he's convinced she is at the center of a vast cover-up, one that may explain her parents' deaths and stretch to unimaginable levels of power. Against all of his professional habits, Robie rescues her and finds he can't walk away. But she isn't an ordinary runaway-her parents were murdered, and her own life is in danger. Now, Robie becomes a target himself and must escape from his own people.įleeing the scene, Robie crosses paths with a wayward teenage girl, a fourteen-year-old runaway from a foster home. But something about this mission doesn't seem right to Robie, and he does the unthinkable. Robie is dispatched to eliminate a target unusually close to home in Washington, D.C. The Innocent It begins with a hit gone wrong.

government calls on Will Robie, a stone cold hitman who never questions orders and always nails his target.īut Will Robie may have just made the first-and last-mistake of his career. America has enemies-ruthless people that the police, the FBI, even the military can't stop.

The innocent david baldacci summary