Divine Justice (Camel Club) (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: supermax prison, John Carr, Oliver Stone, Macklin Hayes (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Near the start of bestseller Baldacci's less than compelling fourth Camel Club thriller (after Stone Cold), former CIA assassin Oliver Stone (aka John Carr) boards a New Orleans–bound train at Washington's Union Station after shooting to death a well-known U.S. senator and the nation's intelligence chief, the two men responsible for his wife's murder. Ever the Good Samaritan, Stone intervenes in a fight on the train, but when the Amtrak conductor asks to see his ID, he gets off at the next station, knowing his fake ID won't withstand scrutiny. So much for Stone's vaunted ability as a resourceful planner. This sudden detour takes Stone to Divine, Va., a mining town where he becomes enmeshed in corruption and intrigue—and falls, in just one of several clichéd situations, for an attractive if beleaguered widow. Series fans should be satisfied, but this effort lacks the imagination that distinguished Baldacci's debut, Absolute Power (1996). (Nov.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Readers who have been holding their breath since the end of Stone Cold (2007), the previous Camel Club novel, can inhale: Oliver Stone did survive his plunge into the water. For the uninitiated, Baldacci’s Oliver Stone isn’t the noted film director; he’s a former government assassin who has made a risky living foiling government conspiracies. Now, having eluded capture after committing a pair of necessary assassinations, Stone (or John Carr, if you prefer to use his real name) is on the run, hiding out in rural America, where he discovers that small-town intrigue is at least as intricate and dangerous as anything he’s come up against previously. Combining the Camel Club series’ wit and fast pace with a Fugitive-like story (casting Stone as Richard Kimble, the man on the run who risks his life to protect the lives of strangers), Baldacci shows once again that he is a sort of thriller Renaissance man: a master of plot, dialogue, and character. It’s fascinating to observe how Stone operates when he’s entirely on his own, too. Not only is he evading his pursuers, especially Macklin Hayes, whose obsessive determination to capture Stone may be based more on personal reasons than professional ones, but he’s also cast himself adrift from his comrades, who are working feverishly behind the scenes to find him and keep him safe. A rousing success, although this should come as no surprise to faithful Baldacci readers. --David Pitt

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 326 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1ST edition (November 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446195502
• ISBN-13: 978-0446195508
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (134 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,491 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 4 in The Camel Club Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another good Camel Club thriller, November 6, 2008

By	BrianB (Northern California) - See all my reviews

The fourth installment of the Camel Club series is a fast paced thriller that shows Baldacci's winning style. If you are a Baldacci fan, I can recommend this novel. If you are not a fan, you will be one after finishing Divine Justice. It is not the best novel of the series, but it is a high quality mystery nonetheless.

The heroes of The Camel Club return their latest adventure, one which may be their last. The action puts all of them into jeopardy, and they find themselves in a series of desperate situations. There is a nation wide manhunt for Oliver Stone, who flees to a small town, only to find himself immersed in anther dangerous mystery there.

The main characters, Oliver Stone and Joe Knox, are flawed but understandable characters, men who don't always do the right thing, but try to act according to their principles. You get to hear their thoughts as one hunts the other, and I found myself caring about both of them, even though they were headed for an inevitable show-down. This element heightens the tension in the story, and made it hard to put the book down. Making Stone seem sympathetic to new readers was a considerable feat for Baldacci, after his main character executes a US senator and the "Head of Intelligence" in the first chapter. Both men admit to themselves that they have broken laws along the way, and they are troubled individuals. The fact that they are often more threatened by their own people than by the bad guys makes the story difficult to put down.

In a rare moment of agreement with Publisher's Weekly, I must admit that this is not Balducci's best effort. Nevertheless, his characters are believable and sympathetic, the action never slows, and the book will hold your interest to the last page. Balducci's lesser novels are better than many author's best.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "With two early morning pulls of the trigger...", November 7, 2008

By	Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

If you haven't already read a David Baldacci book, can't imagine how you missed him. He's penned fifteen bestsellers four of which feature affecting protagonist John Carr also known as Oliver Stone. Once a CIA assassin Stone now battles mightily to right wrongs. Through this character Baldacci has taken readers to Washington, more often than not shocking them with scenarios that may be too close to the truth.

Stone is back in this the fourth installment in the Camel Club series, and he's once again on the run. "With two early morning pulls of the trigger he'd become the most wanted man in America."

He's too smart to try to board a plane knowing the major airports are alive with those looking for him but instead buys a ticket on the Amtrack Crescent, headed for New Orleans. Once settled in his seat, ever alert, he takes note of his fellow passengers - a mother with a baby, a thin man eating a cheeseburger, and a kid a few years out of high school but still wearing his varsity jacket. "To Stone's eye the young man also had the look of someone who was certain that the world owed him everything and had never bothered paying its bill"

The young man is Danny Riker who is soon assaulted by a trio who accuse him of cheating at cards. Stone rescues Danny and the two leave the train at the next stop. When Stone finds out that Danny is from an Appalachian coal mining town, Divine, Virginia, he decides that might be the perfect place for him to hide out.

Divine might be a good place to take cover but it's also a place where corruption is rampant and most of the coal miners are methadone addicts due to the daily injections they take to pass inspections. Couple this with a suicide that in truth might have been murder, and you have an idea what Stone is up against.

In addition to being a masterful storyteller, an expert at creating riveting suspense, Baldacci is a native of Virginia and lives there today. Thus, he brings an added realism to his descriptions of this area and its people.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written fast paced thriller, November 24, 2008

By	Stephen M. Charme (Cranford, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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I am a huge fan of David Baldacci and have read virtually all of his books, including the Camel Club series in which an unlikely group of friends band together to help one another and then solve some problem that affects the public at large.

In this book, one of the friends (Oliver Stone a/k/a John Carr) kills two prominent public figures for whom the reader loses all sympathy as the story unfolds as to what they did to Stone.

Stone does not have much of a plan for evading pursuit by an arch enemy who now wields considerable power and wants to make Stone "disappear" in retribution for the murders. Stone winds up in a rural Virginia town named Divine by a happenstance rescue of a young man who is traveling on the same train as Stone. It turns out that Divine is teeming with intrigue, murder, and drug runners.

Most of the other reviews discuss further details of the story line as to how Stone's friends find and help rescue him from an assortment of evil doers, and also how Joe Knox, a CIA agent who has been assigned by Stone's arch enemy to find Stone, instead winds up befriending him.

I totally disagree that this book is not as interesting or well written as other Camel Club books, or as other Baldacci novels. To the contrary, not only is the action fast paced, but there are interesting insights provided into Stone's character.

Not only did I find this a page turner, but I thought it deftly brought together multiple plot lines, with an ending that was realistic given how politics and top secrets work.

If you are a fan of David Baldacci, or want to read him for the first time, you will not be disappointed with this book.