The Collectors

My book club selected The Collectors by David Baldacci as this month's pick.

Baldacci currently has two books on the bestseller list - Collectors' sequel, Divine Justice just released a few weeks ago, and its prequel Stone Cold is holding on to a spot on the mass-market fiction list.

Once again, I have to thank my fellow book club members for pushing me to pick up a book I might not normally read, but really enjoyed.

Baldacci weaves a tight plot that involves the Speaker of the House, the Library of Congress, the CIA and a casino heist, a la Ocean's Eleven. There's a big reminder here that things are not always what they seem - the heart attack may be a murder, the spy may be a con artist and the guy who mows the grass at the cemetery - there's no telling who he might be.

I do have to mention my disappointment in the audio version of this book. Three different actors were used to read the various characters with a constant narrator. This narrator read all the attribution tags which made for a slight pause between speakers. It didn't work for me.