The Innocent

The Innocent – by David Baldacci

Another new David Baldacci book, another new David Baldacci character that will, it seems, show up again in more of his books.  Will Robie is a government “hit man”.  He’s called on, from time to time, to commit quick and easy kills on some of the world’s most infamous baddies.  Quite often, Robie doesn’t know who or why he is killing.  His job is to follow orders.  He really doesn’t even know who his bosses are.  But he does what he’s asked because he’s doing a greater good for the world, and he is working for the good guys.  Right?

Well, on one mission, Will gets cold feet right before he pulls the trigger.  Something doesn’t feel right, so he abandons the mission.  Big big mistake.  People in Will’s position don’t pull such acts of insubordination, and now the hunter has become the hunted.  Boy, has he ever.  Every few pages it seems like Robie “barely misses” an assassination attempt.  This is a serious deal.

In order to tell a good story, we find Robie thrown together with a 13 year old foster child named Julie.  It seems Julie is on the wrong end of the stick as well, as her recently killed parents were somehow involved in some bizarre government circumstance as well.  So Robie and Julie are a team. This, dear reader, is the worst part of this whole novel.  Julie is a 13 year old foster child, but apparently has the brains of a 50 year old PhD.  That might be believable, but sadly, she also has the attitude of a six year old spoiled brat.  Frankly, it’s an unbelievable combination that simply doesn’t work.  The conversations between Robie and Julie are so awfully written that it makes your stomach churn.  I would suggest that the next time Baldacci tries to create a character of such age and background, he do a bit of research into how such kids really think and talk.

Well, like just about every other Baldacci book, the story borders on the excitement and the absurd.  There are so many clandestine operations that are going on behind the scenes in our nation’s capital, that no one ever really knows who to believe and/or trust, and every time you turn around, there just so happens to be another fresh trail of dead bodies clouding up any sense in this story.

I really hated every time I had to read interactions between characters within this book, but when Baldacci was, instead, describing situations, I thought it more than made up for the inadequacy of the former.  Strange, because as someone who has never attempted to write, I would think the opposite would be the case.  So for future books, I would prescribe more description and less interaction.

I also like the fact that the majority of the chapters are very short and sweet – it seems like the longest chapters where no longer than a few pages.  This makes for a faster story, and I’m not sure if I would like this book had it been drawn out much longer.  In the end, everything sorta wraps us nicely, or as nicely as it could with all the bizarre twists and turns.   I would rank this book as “pretty good” amongst the majority of Baldacci’s novels.