Ebook Total Control David Baldacci Books

Product details Paperback 656 pages Publisher Grand Central Publishing; Reissue edition (January 29, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 153871180X

Total Control David Baldacci Books Reviews

• Total Control was written in the 1990s by author David Baldacci. It is a fast paced thriller. Sidney Archer is a well paid and respected attorney and her husband Jason is a tech whiz at a famous technological company. He is thought to have been killed in a plane crash from Washington DC to Los Angeles. Why did he tell his wife he was leaving on the flight when actually he was on the way to Seattle? Why was the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board among the victims of the plane crash on the DC to LA flight? How deeply is Sidney Archer involved in all the mystery? The FBI becomes involved and the pages fly by. The book deals with technological and financial matters which were hard to follow for this old English major!
  The book is just OK and not one of the author's best.
• I have read many of Baldacci's books and liked all of them, so far. This, however, is crap. The characters feel flat and two dimensional and the dialog is stilted and cringeworthy. I half-expected the villain to be twirling a waxed mustache. Of course, Amy has inherited her mother's thick blond hair, her father's piercing blue eyes and his athletic grace. Athletic grace at two?! Just mom's hair? Baldacci hastens to inform us that the stunning Sidney was a whip thin star college basketball star with...large breasts. Sadly, staying super fit (could we hear more about his abs?), incredibly smart, career-driven and a dad didn't leave Jason time to learn about the real world and that crooks don't play fair. The transitions between the predictable plot sequences are awkward. The book reads like it was written by a first time novelist. I now see whay it has been reduced in price.
• I expected this to be one of the best books I ever read, and I was disappointed until half of the book. I was feeling so negative with Baldacci’s book with so many threads and individuals involved in his drama, that I lost count of their names and job positions. The professional burglar witnessed sex and murder involving the President of United States, that no one could imagine where theses events could lead to. Initially, I was planning to drop the book with this political involvement, and confusion since I am used to Vince Flynn’s thrillers and Michael Connell's police thrillers that keep you wanting more on those actions. But then it started to make sense and I said Baldacci has something for me. Things started to being put together leading to an end I could never thought. I believed her husband would be found alive and who would go to prison for his crimes, but still I was guessing.
  Great book for fans of political thrillers knowing that Baldacci has always some tricks in his pocket, like the Winner I am presently reading.
• An enjoyable read. The compelling characters are reasonably well developed, and remain relatively consistent. (Except for Sydney who morphs into Wonder Woman). The story develops consistently (without the ridiculous plot twists of many authors) and the exciting well-paced action keep the reader going until the end. The author earns the readers' "suspension of disbelief" to overlook many inconsistences, implausibilities, and plot threads which are left hanging.
  
  TOTAL CONTROL
  The title tells the story---computer geniuses who can do ANYTHING, literally. That's lazy and poorly chosen device, because it creates a universe without rules, in which the reader does not have sufficient information to participate; to evaluate possibilities; or to anticipate plot developments.
  
  A CAST OF THOUSANDS
  Not quite thousands, but there are about 2 dozen major characters---way too many for me to keep track of, even taking notes.
  
  TOO MANY PLOT THREADS--TOO MANY RED HERRINGS
  The reader patiently waits for story to crystalize, but it never does. For example, characters wear elaborate disguises, and characters' voices are faked, so the reader can't be sure that a described event actually happened.
  
  UNSATISFYING RESOLUTION
  This is one of those novels where the resolution consists of the confessions of 2 "villains" on the last pages of the novel---almost always a poor storytelling technique. The resolution is simultaneously predictable, incomplete, and unsatisfying. Even having re-read those final pages several times it is unclear to me why Jason Archer was abducted in the first place, nor why many of the other key events happened.
  
  > Click on “Stoney” just below the product title to see my other reviews, or leave a comment to ask a question.
• This is a book that is really hard to put down. Each chapter brings a new dimension to the plot that keeps you guessing the entire time. What could possibly be next? A complicated crime that involves big business, International monetary policy, complicated and overlapping motives from several individuals that could possibly think up some treacherous ways to gain total control of the electronic world; cyberspace. It begins with a mysterious changing of airline tickets at an airport, and the plane that Jason was supposed to be on crashes, killing 181 people. It was clearly sabotage, and the hunt begins to discover who could have possibly done this heinous crime, and why? A look at the passengers on the aircraft brings potential motives into focus, and couple this crash with the missing person who deceptively boarded another plane, and the thrill is on. Jason is married to a lovely, intelligent lawyer who is involved as lead counsel on an enormous business merger. Jason works for the company that she represents in the merger. Jason’s deception looks and acts like business espionage at the highest level possible, and big money is on the line. Everything looks terrible for this couple, and it gets worse as both of their lives become endangered and their careers devastated by mastermind criminals who devise every scheme designed to make them look guilty and complicit. Fast paced story with an exciting finish.