WILL ROBIE

       Will Robie is an agent with the CIA.
       He is an assassin - one of their very best. According to the author's website, "America has enemies — ruthless people that the police, the FBI, even the military can’t stop. To combat them, the U.S. government calls on Will Robie, a stone-cold hitman who never questions orders and always nails his target."
       This description is close but as the series opens and then progresses, a couple of items changes slightly. He stays largely stone-cold but the people he meets and the realization that his life is pretty empty outside his work has him warming up. He is by no means room temperature yet but there is thawing. The other point is the "never questions orders" as he learns the hard way that after years of doing what he does, there comes a time when he has to ask "why".
       Robie is an extremely private person, revealing very little to anyone, including the readers. He is just reaching 40 and since he has been a government assassin for over a decade, he obviously started in his late 20's. Military service before that is a certainty with Special Forces a given. This would have put him in during the First Gulf War and his sniper skills would have come in handy and would have brought him to the attention of the talent scouts for the Agency.
       He has never been married and until the events of first book he had never entertained the idea of a family and a homelife. Even when certain things did not work out as he had hoped in the first recorded adventure, the wall he had erected around himself was showing cracks and the second adventure just adds to the weakening.
       But he remains a most dangerous killer. He is blessed with impressive powers of observation and a mind that can analyze rapidly and come up with alternatives, a gift that those in his line of work must have or they do not survive. And Robie is a survivor.

       I've said in comments about other David Baldacci series that he has not written a bad one yet and with this latest entry, Will Robie, his track record remains firmly in place. I tried to force the world to leave me alone while reading these. It didn't but I hung in there. The books were too much fun not to.
       One of the things that makes these books so good are the support characters. Without them, the coldness of the lead would be a turn-off but they show true warmth and eventually begin to thaw out this assassin who has forced emotions aside to stay at the top of his game. As the books progress, his icy exterior thins a fair amount but his ability to deal with bad guys does not suffer. If anything, having people to protect makes Robie far more dangerous.
       The pacing of the books is what always distinguishes a Baldacci work and these are no exceptions. They flow so smoothly it is like a fine Napoleon brandy or a 12-year old single malt Scotch. My drinking days are behind me but my reading stays a constant and so does my appreciation for Will Robie and his creator.

My Grade: A

Your Average Grade:   A+

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