Customer Reviews

The Collectors

5 star:		(64)
4 star:		(60)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

It wouldn't be October without the publication of a new David Baldacci thriller, and The Collectors is his latest for 2007. While I enjoyed The Collectors, I don't think it is his strongest effort.

The Collectors is actually two stories. In the first, the Speaker of the House and a curator at the Library of Congress are both murdered (the second is made to look like natural causes). Caleb Shaw is a librarian at the Library of Congress, and he is also a member of the Camel Club (introduced in the book by the same name). The Camel Club consists of four misfits (nearing senior citizen status) who form a secret conspiracy watchdog organization. They decide to investigate the deaths and immediately, they discover they're being followed by agents who could be FBI, CIA or NSA. The subplot involves four individual cons who launch a scheme to swindle an Atlantic City casino owner out of $30 million. The ringleader, Annabelle Conroy, becomes immersed in the Camel Club's investigation when she attends the funeral of the library curator. The closer they come to the truth, the more endangered their lives become.

All thrillers have a bit of disbelief in their stories, and The Collectors is no exception. I don't think Baldacci was on top of his game with The Collectors in terms of plot development. Plus, the ending never really resolves all the questions and is just an opening for a sequel. While good, it doesn't come close to his earlier works including Absolute Power and A Simple Truth.

David Baldacci's ensemble of fascinating and brilliantly created characters in `The Collectors' coupled with two intertwining plots of murder and a clever financial con make for a completely enjoyable and page-turning read. Following his best selling hit `The Camel Club' with some familiar faces and the addition of the sultry yet incorrigibly scandalous Annabelle Conroy, readers will be continually amused and entertained as Baldacci, as if a grand maestro, intertwines and blends the character action and movement with such ease and storyline pleasure. As usual and expected in Baldacci's novels, readers will be left turning the pages, in this case as the plot moves to a very interesting conclusion when the World of Washington politics and those involved with a long-term swindle are forced to collide. Folks, sit back and enjoy `The Collectors', it very well may be David Baldacci's best yet.

I don't usually write negative reviews but I will make an exception here. I enjoy reading stories where intelligent people do intelligent things, but in this tome the characters do one stupid thing after another. For example, the beautiful super con lady is in a restaurant when she notices a man looking at her. She goes to a table where some men she has never seen before are eating and tells them she wants to practice a movie plot and wants them to act like Mafioso. Then she goes to the man staring at her and makes a big scene threatening him with the other men. Are you kidding me, that is the last thing a con women would do plus it is a completely unbelievable scenario. In another part her genius cohort who dropped out of MIT due to boredom makes a mistake in a bank con that a five year old wouldn't make. Next her team cons a casino owner out of millions in a way that could never happen. The other plot starts with the murder of the speaker of the house which is similar to murdering the president but here it is treated like no biggie. Please. If you want to read something good try Michael Connelly or Daniel Silva.

Even from the opening pages, "The Collectors" harbours no deep, dark secrets about the identity of the villain. Roger Seagraves, top flight CIA agent has turned renegade assassin for hire and seller of top level secret information. Having recently completed a successful hit on Speaker of the House, Robert Bradley, his next job was Jonathan DeHaven, Director of Rare Books and Special Collections in the Library of Congress. Why DeHaven, a harmless antiquarian book lover? Thus are sown the seeds of the involvement and interest of the four gents of the Camel Club - Milton Farb, obsessive-compulsive computer geek and ex-Jeopardy champion; Oliver Stone, former CIA black ops agent whose past has simply been erased and swept under the carpet; Reuben Rhodes, the pugilistic, big man and decorated Vietnam veteran; and Caleb Shaw, the mild-mannered, retiring librarian who stumbled across the body of his recently deceased boss as he arrived for his day's work! As one might expect from such a collection of aging, overwrought conspiracy theorists (C'mon! This is a thriller after all!), the details of DeHaven's death, written off as cardiac arrest, smell slightly off and our heroes are unable to resist inserting themselves into a search for the solution to a mystery that nobody else even believes is a mystery.

The other half of this dual plot-line novel involves Annabelle Conroy, a gorgeous confidence trickster, who pulls together a team of top flight criminal colleagues to engineer three "short" cons. These clever smaller jobs are aimed at procuring the funds to finance an ingenious "long" con to lighten Jerry Bagger's wallet to the tune of $30 million. Bagger, an Atlantic City casino baron, was responsible many years earlier for the ruthless murder of Annabelle's mother and Conroy wants her revenge. As they must, the plots cross paths and mesh together when Oliver Stone spots Conroy at DeHaven's funeral, recognizes her from an old photograph in his home and discovers that Conroy is DeHaven's ex-wife.

With the Camel Club, there can be no doubt that Baldacci has put together an entertaining series concept that now has some serious legs. The dialogue is credible and punchy and the cast continues to mature out of their more comic introduction in "The Camel Club" into a set of endearing, thoughtful characters each with their own set of strengths, weaknesses, foibles, idiosyncracies and motives. Baldacci's reading audience will be rooting for the right outcome, booing at the bad guys, chewing their fingernails with concern at all the appropriate cliffhanger locations and will doubtless care what happens to these men as they move quickly from one crisis to another. The story ends (for better or worse) on a completely unresolved plot issue guaranteed to provide the opening for a sequel and return encounter with the Camel Club, Annabelle Conroy and an infuriated Jerry Bagger.

Like most thrillers, "The Collectors" requires a certain amount of suspension of belief and an acceptance of coincidence but the story is so entertaining that I found myself quite forgiving. The fascinating information that Baldacci wove into the story was completely intriguing - the mechanics of identity theft, the backroom operations of a casino, the antiquarian book market. But then there was the sex ... holy cow, and was it awful! I'll admit it ... I enjoy a good, steamy sex scene from time to time in a thriller but Baldacci's writing in this area was so laboured, so trite and so rigidly choreographed that it sounded more like a laughable rehearsal for a bad back alley B-movie!

One weakness notwithstanding, "The Collectors" was a thoroughly entertaining novel that will have me waiting in line for its sequel.

Paul Weiss

The latest novel concerning the members of the Camel Club, first introduced in the novel of the same name by Virginia author David Baldacci, is as intriguing and exciting as the previous work. The story begins with the death of the Speaker of the House and speeds on from there to introduce us to an employ of the Library of Congress who also meets a fatal end. In comes Caleb Shaw, another employ at the LoC and member of the Camel Club. Soon, the four friends are embroiled in a story of conspiracy, murder, and spies selling secrets. Meanwhile another character, Annabelle Conroy, has her own story to tell in Atlantic City. It's not long before the two plots mesh leading Annabelle, Caleb, Oliver, Reuben and Milton -- with infrequent appearances by Secret Service agent Alex Ford -- to ferret out the mystery and bring the villains to justice.

The Good: While not as good in this reviewer's opinion as The Camel Club, The Collectors is still a very good novel. The characters are intriguing, with heroes you can't help but root for and a villain that is so wicked, so down right corrupt, that you can't help but love and hate him at the same time. The scenes in the Library of Congress were very well done and it was in this place that Caleb Shaw really shined as not only a character but almost as a real person. The cliffhanger was amazingly well done.

The Bad: This reviewer would have liked to have seen a little more of Alex Ford. Also, despite the very well done cliffhanger the ending was good but a little rushed in parts.

In closing, The Collectors is a good novel definitely worthy of a reread after reading or rereading The Camel Club. It is a very good book and should be picked up; but, pick up the first novel beforehand.

David Baldacci is an author who usually writes a great thriller. This book is an exception to that.

This story is a sequel to 'The Camel Club'. As with the previous book, 'The Collectors' features an elderly group of oddballs who outsmart and out investigate the FBI, the D.C. Police, and everyone else. Although that sort of plot may work at times, it doesn't here. There are just too many implausible situations that make this story too farfetched.

With another author, this book might be considered pretty good as it does keep moving even though it is a huge stretch at times. As Baldacci started his writing career so strong (Absolute Power, Total Control), it is a disappointment. It is kind of like Tom Clancy going from his numerous brilliant novels to the Op Center series.

If you are a fan of Baldacci's earlier works (excluding Wish You Well and The Camel Club), I would not recommend this one. It will be a let down.

baldacci has lost his creativity in his style of writing.
he has created a group of individuals in whom he can protract a series of
novels with a thin story line.
it's like the secret seven or the famous five style of novels.
he is not the only author who has followed this path.
i.e. Preston and Child have created similar characters in the museum series.
sorry,don't like it.

There are two interesting overlapping plots and one, while developed, is finally just left unfinished. I wonder what was going on; did the publisher insist on having a final manuscript or is someone being greedy? If I am asked about the necessary sequel, I will not buy it! To quote the New England saying, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!)

I enjoyed this book, although I have a difficult time grabbing ahold of these characters (both this one and the Camel Club). Thankfully, Baldacci didn't resort to an amazing set of coincidences to make the story work. Overall, I would recommend this book (and have before).

This was my first Baldacci book, and I have to say that I would have to have my arm twisted to read another. To me, it was very amateurish, both in the plot as well as the writing itself. I stayed with it until the bitter end...just for kicks and giggles. If this is any indication, I was twenty pages to the end, and chose not to take it to the beach to finish. After returning two weeks later, I picked it up this morning to finish. When the mastermind of the conspriracy was revealed as someone who fooled the "Camel Club" with a shaky disguise, I actually laughed out loud.

It is difficult to make fiction realistic, but I would hope that an author who has reached the level that Mr. Baldacci has apparently achieved would have mastered that. That's what supposedly separates them from the pack. Not the case here, though. I would have rated this an excellent book, had it been a first-out-of-the-gate for a fifteen-year-old novice. Trite at best, and if Mr. Baldacci's goal was to insult the reader by hiding the mastermind behind a cheesy disguise, well then I guess he succeeded in at least that much.