Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 12 hours and 14 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Audible.com Release Date: April 17, 2012
Whispersync for Voice: Ready
Language: English
ASIN: B007UWOXKE
Best Sellers Rank: #86 in Books > Audible Audiobooks > Mysteries & Thrillers #360 in Books > Audible Audiobooks > Fiction & Literature #929 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense
While I'll admit that I haven't read everything that the prolific Mr. Baldacci has published in recent years, I'm pleased to say that The Innocent is the strongest novel I've seen from him in quite some time. It was a book that I didn't want to put down until I'd read it all.The novel opens with Will Robie. We learn that he is "an inch over six feet and a rock-solid one hundred and eighty pounds", that he is one day shy of his 40th birthday, and that he is a professional killer. But this is no thug off the street; this is a man with a rich interior life, a moral center, and more than a little going on upstairs. Therefore, it's not too surprising when we soon learn that Robie is employed by an unnamed federal agency to carry out "sanctioned assassinations." In his own words:"Sometimes he went after people intent on global menace, like Rivera or Talal, or sometimes he simply went after a problem. You could take your pick of labels, but in the end, they all meant the same thing. His employer decided who among the living and breathing would qualify as a target. And then they turned to men like Robie to end the living and breathing part. It made the world better, was the justification."Except this time, he's being sent after a different type of target--a woman, an American, a mother. At the crucial moment, Robie refuses to fire. It doesn't smell right. Someone finishes the job with a long-range sniper shot, and it looks like they'll finish Robie as well if he doesn't run.Elsewhere, we meet the wise-beyond-her-14-years Julie Getty. She's been in and out of the foster care system, and she's in the process of escaping her latest "caregivers.
As The Innocent opens, Will Robie is carrying out a mission for his Agency masters. He assassinates a man (and his four ultra-evil bodyguards) who is planning a military coup in Mexico that will create a government hostile to American interests. This is followed by the rather improbable assassination of a Saudi prince. Robie doesn't let himself be bothered by his assignments, but he finds himself with a dilemma when he's ordered to kill a nearly middle-aged woman in D.C., particularly when he discovers (after breaking into her apartment) that she's the mother of two, including the infant sleeping next to her, and a U.S. government employee to boot. The dilemma is resolved when Robie's handler shoots mother and child from a distance and attempts to take out Robie in the process.After this dramatic opening, the story takes a strange twist when Robie, who wonders whether he has become the target of the government he once served, encounters fourteen-year-old girl named Julie whose parents have been murdered. Robie and Julie barely survive the explosion of a bus on which they had been riding. Who was the target: Robie or Julie? What, if any, is the connection between the woman Robie was sent to kill and Julie's parents? Many gun battles and explosions later, the answer to those questions remains unclear. That's what held my attention to the end of this fast-moving novel.I wouldn't call the plot byzantine, but it is deliciously complex. To my amazement, every plot thread (even an incident or two I didn't expect to be important to the overall plot) comes together in the final chapters.
Scott Turow 2 book unabridged audio Cd set: presumed Innocent/Innocent The Innocent: A Novel Sue Grafton GHI Gift Collection: "G" Is for Gumshoe, "H" Is for Homicide, "I" Is for Innocent (A Kinsey Millhone Novel) The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town St. Innocent of Alaska: Apostle and Missionary The Innocent Killer: A True Story of a Wrongful Conviction and Its Astonishing Aftermath Convicting the Innocent Only the Innocent The Innocent (Will Robie Series) The Innocent The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (John Grisham) I Is For Innocent (Sue Grafton) Presumed Innocent Innocent Innocent [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD] Innocent (Kindle County) Hollow City: The Graphic Novel: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel) The Legend of Mickey Tussler: A Novel (Mickey Tussler Novel) The Jealous Kind: A Novel (A Holland Family Novel) Algonquin Spring: An Algonquin Quest Novel (An Algonguin Quest Novel)