Meanwhile, King's old flame, Joan Dillinger, an ex-agent whose security firm has been hired to find the kidnapped presidential candidate, hires King to help in the hunt. Maxwell sees King on TV and decides to look into the event that caused his disgrace, so similar to hers.
Then a body appears in the office of King, who's now a successful lawyer in North Carolina.
Eight years later, agent Michelle Maxwell lets the candidate she's watching enter a funeral parlor room alone he's kidnapped. It begins in 1996, when Secret Service agent Sean King is distracted-by what isn't revealed until near the book's end-just when the presidential candidate he's guarding is shot dead. The novel is primarily a mystery, with lots of talk and untangling of clues, and a less than gripping one at that. And that is the problem: this story of two disgraced Secret Service agents who come together to solve two campaign-trail crimes doesn't play to Baldacci's strengths, which are suspense and action (as well as strong characterizations here's one thriller author who writes people that readers care about). 'We just solved a huge, complicated mystery,' says one protagonist to another in this latest novel from the bestselling author of Last Man Standing, Absolute Power, etc.
