I have never read any David Baldacci before and to be honest I’d let my expectations get in the way. I’m not a huge fan of American conspiracy thrillers but Baldacci proved to be more than that. I believed that a book of this girth would have a lot of characters and I would have difficulty sorting out one character from the other as so many of them would seem the same. I even approached this novel with a piece of paper and began noting down characters as they appeared to try and separate them in my mind. I actually think I could have managed without this “character list” as Baldacci’s characterisation was much stronger than I was expecting and the major players in the novel soon began to make themselves clear. So, apologies Mr Baldacci. I also expected the plot to be a tad contrived but and apologies here once again, Mr Baldacci, I found the build-up of events leading to an incident with the American President really quite gripping.

There was for me, however, a slight waning of the interest in the last quarter of the novel where it became more standard rescue mission fare but the whole thing came as quite a surprise that I enjoyed it far more than I was expecting to. I don’t know where these expectations come from. I still say that this type of political conspiracy tale is not exactly my first choice of reading but I would happily seek out others in this series.