Customer Reviews

The Whole Truth

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

I was reluctant to purchase David Baldacci's The Whole Truth as some of his most recent books have been lacking in quality. Fortunately, this latest book reminds me of his earlier and better works.

Nicholas Creel owns a defense contracting business called Ares. In an effort to bolster sales, he hires Dick Pender whose specialty is perception management. Perception managers fabricate facts and then pass them off to the public as truth. "Why waste time trying to discover the truth, when you can so easily create it?" Pender hatches a scheme to create an international incident that will result in a number of superpowers on the verge of war. These countries will then increase their defense spending and order weapons and equipment from Ares.

Part of the scheme is called "The Red Menace." Pender and staff are planting false stories about the Russians in the news and over the internet. Several people suspect that these stories are false, including journalist Kate James, consultant Anna Fischer and operative A. Shaw. In usual thriller fashion, the closer they get to the truth, the more dangerous their lives become. How The Whole Truth unfolds will have you turning pages at breakneck speed.

Baldacci is good in that he incorporates many present day current events to make The Whole Truth very realistic. While almost all thrillers have an element of disbelief, you can actually imagine many of these situations taking place.

I am happy that Baldacci took a break from his Camel Club series and has given us something totally new. The Whole Truth is the kind of book that I have come to expect from Baldacci. Overall, I'd rate it four and a half stars.

Dick Pender, a former employee in the White House press office, is an expert in perception management. His motto is: "Why waste time trying to discover the truth, when you can so easily create it?" In David Baldacci's "The Whole Truth," some very influential people pay Pender big bucks to bury inconvenient secrets and manipulate public opinion, using cleverly crafted lies packaged for maximum media impact. Pender's most important client is Machiavellian billionaire Nicholas Creel, the head of a defense conglomerate called the Ares Corporation. Creel, who believes that "a peace based on lurking terror was the best kind of all," hires Pender to manufacture an artificial conflict that would generate a stepped-up arms race among the world's superpowers.

Baldacci's hero is Shaw, a globetrotting troubleshooter for a shadowy international law-enforcement organization, "sort of like Interpol on steroids." He is a strong and physically imposing man whose knowledge of surveillance, hand-to-hand combat, and weaponry makes him a highly valuable asset. His acting ability, uncanny intuition, courage, and coolness under pressure have helped him prevail in a number of dangerous situations. On any given day, Shaw's quarry might include ruthless drug dealers, bloodthirsty terrorists, or vicious neo-Nazis. Although Shaw dreams of retiring and living a sedate life with his beautiful and brilliant girlfriend, German-born Anna Fischer, his boss has him in a stranglehold from which he cannot easily break free.

Complicating matters is Katie James, an award-winning investigative journalist. As a result of a traumatic experience in Afghanistan, she became an alcoholic who has been relegated to writing obituaries. Through happenstance, Katie meets Shaw and both narrowly escape after a run-in with a group of murderous thugs in Scotland. When an unexpected tragedy sends an enraged Shaw on a mission of revenge, Katie decides to risk her life in order to help him and, in the process, pursue the biggest story of her career.

Although it is action-packed and suspenseful, "The Whole Truth" is marred by cliché-ridden dialogue and cartoonish villains who utter such lines as: "I didn't bring you here for a lecture. I brought you here to die." The story is convoluted and extremely violent, and the author repeatedly hammers home his heavy-handed message that unscrupulous individuals and even governments intentionally mislead us by disseminating false information. At best, "The Whole Truth" provides escapist entertainment for readers who are willing to overlook the book's one-dimensional characters, far-fetched plot, and pedestrian writing.

If you were a fan of Robert Ludlum, the late, great espionage writer, there's reason to cheer. Even though the Cold War days are over, there are still a bevy of bad guys out there - and this time they don't have turbans on their heads.

David Baldacci's "The Whole Truth" will make you sit back and take a long look at who's really running the show and who's reporting the news these days.

Gazllionaire Nicholas Creel (even his name sounds smarmy), the world's largest defense contractor, doesn't like the way things are going. Russia's been too quiet and China's not currently mad at anyone. He pays a "perception management" team to stir the pot, with violent and fatal results.

In the middle of the action is Katie James, a journalist whose dependency on alcohol has landed her at the obit desk of her newspaper. After covering the funeral of a Scottish hero, James lands in the middle of what she thinks is an international drug smuggling ring. A chance encounter with Shaw (no first name) pulls James into the biggest story of her life, if she can live to tell the tale.

While you'll need to suspend your attachment to reality and there are times the writing goes stale, with "The Whole Truth," Baldacci has established himself as a big man on campus when it comes to political terrorism.

I have liked Baldacci in the past, but like many writers who succeed they quit writing and either have some C- high-schooler do their writing or just do it for the money. The characters in this book are so one-dimensional they are cartoons, but there are no illustrations to entertain you. You just don't care about them because they are not real.

All descriptions are so extreme they are juvenile. The billionaire's house is so big it could hold a dozen Monticellos. Gee golly gosh! The woman Shaw loves has long legs and so does the journalist - from this you know they are special. When the alcoholic writer throws up 5 days of booze binging you are mystifed that this is even medically possible. Five days of hard liquor consumption is still in her stomach? The bad guys are caricatures, totally vile, and the conversations are from noir tv shows of the 50s: short, sarcastic, and silly.

The premise would be good if not so overblown, that we sheep are manipulated by press and p.r. types and not privy to the real truth behind what we read. Too bad it wasn't written by Lee Child who gives you an exciting lead character, believable action for starters. (Dear Lee Child, Please don't go in this direction). Or by Lescroart who takes you inside the real world of courts and office politics and how the game of life is really played with believable good guys and bad guys.

If this is the only book you can find and you are a on a desert island then read it for instruction on how not to write your next novel.

I would have put it down but for some misguided belief I have to finish a book once started. So word to the wise: don't pick it up.

I could not finish this book and I like David Baldacci's novels. After the umpteenth time that Shaw cries over or loses control of himself over the death of his Anna, I shut the book and chucked it. Unbelievable characters written over the top like something on Lifetime TV and then overacted. Was this going to be TV script or movie?
I did not care about any of the characters despite Baldacci continuously telling me about their inner thoughts and motivations. I got it already, get on with the action!

The only way this could have made the NYT bestseller list is that everyone thought it would be like his previous novels.

A mark of a good writer is the ability to take trite material and make it somehow a decent read. The mark of a great writer is to avoid using this material altogether. By this standard, The Whole Truth shows that David Baldacci is merely a good writer.

The Whole Truth deals with a plot by billionaire arms dealer Nicholas Creel to re-start the Cold War and in the process line up a lot of new business for himself. The first step in this process involves spreading a false video of a Russian claiming torture and mass murders within his country. Denials by the Russians only exacerbate the situation, and the world community begins to turn against them.

Meanwhile, Shaw, a secret operative for a secret international agency is trying to get out of the business and marry his girlfriend, Anna Fischer. Unfortunately, retirement will not be easy, and Anna will stumble upon information that the video is indeed a fraud, creating additional complications. And alcoholic star reporter Katie James will also get involved in unearthing the conspiracy, eventually teaming with Shaw to determine the whole truth.

Despite his popularity, Baldacci has never been one of the top-tier suspense writers, but he is still usually a decent one. The Whole Truth, however, is a by-the-numbers story laden with cliches and coincidences. Creel is just a standard megalomaniac, Shaw is a standard super-spy and the plot stretches credibility to the breaking point right from the start. The way virtually everyone embraces the video as fact is ludicrous: it doesn't take a sociologist to know that there would be a substantial minority who would doubt it, even the evidence was more credible.

Baldacci has enough skill to make this material readable, but it is hardly worth recommending. I suppose if you haven't read much suspense fiction, The Whole Truth might be enjoyable, but for any veterans with the genre, this is one to avoid.

Having read all of this author's earlier books, I was very disappointed with this novel. Although the premise of the story has great merit, the shallow characters with predictable action and cliche dialogue, make this a very weary read. As suggested by several other reviewers, one definitely gets the impression that there was a deadline and the adaptation of a standard character and plot development that seems to be increasingly common amongst what initially was a good pool of writers, i.e. Jack Higgins, James Patterson, Daniel Silva - just to name a few. I will probably hold off on reading future books by this author.

David Baldacci has been one of our most reliable authors, but The Whole Truth reads like something he dashed out in a wasted effort to cash in on his excellent reputation. It is a silly, cliche-driven and beyond-fiction tale that is boring and not worth our time. While the premise is interesting -- that the internet can be used to spread any news, whether true or not -- it is buried under a sad cast of unbelievable characters.

Had this been my 1st Baldacci read, I'm afraid my literary curiosity would have ended here. I have enjoyed Baldacci's previous work, some more than others. The charactors in this novel were about as "empty" as I've ever seen on paper. Shaw inspired no sympathy over his loss, other than to bemoan it at each and every turn. "Beat it to death", in my view.

The plot itself could have been a very interesting concept, but Baldacci failed to develop it in any creative or interesting manner. I had the impression that the dialogue was developed by a Jr high school student.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I gave it a 3. Most of his previous works rated much higher. Too bad. Very disappointed.

In every story there is a premise. The plot can be real or a figment of one's imagination. If it is unreal or illogical, it can interfere with the reader's enjoyment. Such is, perhaps, the case with this novel.

The plot is a fairly simple one. Nicolas Creel, the head of a large defense contractor somewhat on the skids, undertakes to recreate the Cold War to encourage another arms race. Along the way, to accomplish this aim, the collateral damage is widespread, with many people left dead, Russia and China at each other's throats. Only Shaw, a larger-than-life protagonist, and Katie James, a two-time Pulitzer Prize journalist turned unemployed alcoholic (along with a little help) can uncover the plot and prevent Armageddon. Meanwhile, trillions of dollars of arms contracts flow to the instigator of the plot, as well as other defense companies.

The problem is, the premise is highly improbable. For a defense contractor to sell weapons and other materiel overseas, permission and a license has to be granted by the United States Government. Without such an OK, no sale. So the truth is the premise for this novel is pure fiction. But, after all, that's what novels are for. So, if the reader can by-pass this little impediment, a highly charged and entertaining read is available.