Tuesday, May 12, 2009 10:57 AM CDT
Book Reviews
‘First Family,’ by David Baldacci
‘Borderline,’ by Nevada Barr
Reviews by Juanita Sherwood
“First Family,” by David Baldacci, has been high on the best seller list recently. It deserves that distinction.
The title is self-explanatory. The book centers around a couple, Dan and Jane Cox, who have served as president and first lady for almost one term and are planning to run for a second.
As the story opens, Jane is hosting a birthday party for her niece at Camp David.
After the party, the main characters, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, former Secret Service agents who now have a private detective agency, have an appointment to meet with the sister-in-law of the first lady, the mother of the niece.
They are unaware of the nature of the appointment, but as they approach the secluded home of the in-laws of the first family, King and Maxwell barely avoid an ambush.
Upon investigation, it is discovered that the sister-in-law of the first lady has been murdered, and the niece who had just celebrated her birthday is missing and presumed kidnapped.
Soon, a woman who lives in Atlanta is shown to be kidnapped, as well. The reader does not know at first, but the two kidnappings are related. Later, it will be revealed that the two victims are being held in the same place, but in different rooms so that they are unaware of each other.
The kidnapper is a brilliant man who has a vendetta against someone unknown to the reader. The identity of the intended target of the vendetta is a surprise, but also the reasons for such are startling.
Needless to say, the end is typical Baldacci: everything works out for the sympathetic characters and the “bad guys” lose, but the ride to get there is entertaining.
“Borderline” has not appeared in the very top of the best seller list like Baldacci’s book, but it is equally recommended. Barr’s recurring main character is Anna Pigeon, a Park Service ranger who travels on assignment to a different national park in each book.
In the previous book, she served in Isle Royale in the wintertime, where she had to kill a man to save herself and others overwintering on the island.
She is suffering guilt and trauma from this incident; in this book, she and her new husband are on vacation in Big Bend National Park on the border of Texas and Mexico. Anna is supposed to be relaxing and recovering so that she can return to work.
She, her husband and a group of young people are on a multiple-day rafting excursion down the Rio Grande River when challenges and tragedy strike.
Rainfall in the mountains nearby has turned the excursion into a “situation.” Rapids, which should have been barely a challenge, become deadly when the excess rainfall swells the river and causes difficulty for even their very experienced guide.
After a rescue of a cow deserted on a ledge in the canyon, things on the trip begin to fall apart. Some of the vacationers almost drown in the rising waters, the guide is shot from afar and killed, and one of the vacationers discovers a pregnant woman caught in the brush in the rising waters. She is rescued, but Anna performs an emergency C section and saves the infant after the woman expires.
Mixing into the situation is “Texas politics,” where an ambitious female politician is trying to manipulate the situation on the river regarding the drowning and the killing to her own advantage using her own agenda.
This book, too, has some surprises in store. Set aside some time to include this in your reading soon.
Sherwood of Charleston is a retired reading teacher.
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