Since he killed a little girl by mistake along with his target, ace CIA assassin Will Robie can’t pull the trigger anymore. He realises that to once more become the cold-blooded killer he was, he has to do something drastic. And that comes in the form of revisiting his past. Robie receives news that his father Dan Robie, a judge in his Gulf Coast hometown of Cantrell, has been arrested and charged with murder… and he can’t care less. He, however, realises that he needs to lay some ghosts of his past to rest in order to go on doing what he does best — kill people for the government.
But as soon as he arrives, he realises that things are not right in the small Southern town. From the public prosecutor to his new stepmother, everyone seems to be harbouring secrets. And to make matters worse, his Vietnam veteran father is least interested in taking help from his son who is not willing to disclose what he does for a living. With the equally formidable Jessica Reel at his side, Robie ignores his father’s wishes and begins his own desperate investigation into the case. But Robie is now a stranger to his hometown, an outsider, a man who has forsaken his past and his family. His attempts to save his father are met with distrust and skepticism — and violence.
Unlike the missions Robie undertook in the service of his country, where his target was clearly defined, digging into his father’s case only reveals more questions. Robie is drawn into the hidden underside of Cantrell, where he must face the unexpected and possibly deadly consequences of the long-ago choices made by father and son. And this time, there may be no escape for either of them. The Guilty is David Baldacci’s fourth Will Robie novel. It is a healthy mix of intrigue, mystery and violence, suitably spiced with typical Southern racis and some incest too.
The book, however, bumps and starts. At some point Baldacci decided that he would try his hand at a murder-mystery, but even the most basic whodunnit has to be layered with mystery and clues, something that an action thriller — Baldacci’s forte — does not have to bother about. And it’s here that he has failed. While Robie is looking for clues, bodies fall like ninepins. Hell, he kills more people than were actually dead to begin with. But we don’t see even a peep out of the authorities despite the fact that no one knows what our hero does for a living.
The action stuff is great, but that’s what Baldacci is known about. The murder-mystery part, however, should have been best left to experts. Baldacci has not been able to make the connections seem believable, and when Robie does follow a line of investigation based on a hunch, it seems too far-fetched. The Guilty also screams of racism, abuse and incest. It’s almost as if Baldacci is trying to say that this is how the American South is deal with it.
The book, however, is fast and does not keep you hanging. When it seems like things are getting a bit boring, along comes a big wallop of action that suckerpunches you when you least expect it. Will Robie and Jessica Reel make a great team. But for two people of the opposite sex who constantly stand by each other through some pretty life threatening situations, perhaps they should show some more emotions towards each other, even a bit more of friendly banter would do. And brilliant agents they might be, but Baldacci shouldn’t have tried to make them sleuths. The Guilty at best is an airport pick up, one that will see you through a long flight, if not hooked on to the plot, then by lulling you to sleep.
