Mystery

fiction, #6 in series (2020) but as with this sort of popular fiction, can easily serve as a standalone as an intro to the series/author. Also listed as Will Robie #5.5, since the character from a separate series (different skillset) also plays a part.

picked up from a Little Free Library, part of my trying various popular authors I've never read before--

follows FBI investigator Amos Decker (former Ohio football player, big/tall guy, photographic memory and synesthesiac) and his partner Alex Jamison (whose main role appears to be asking lots of questions so that Decker can mansplain things to her--to be fair, they are obscure things most people wouldn't know about so it's not so bad as that, but if you're not into telling vs showing this series may not be for you). They are called in to North Dakota (lots of fracking and oil workers in the otherwise small town of London, very hot and humid in the summer with plenty of lightning storms) for a strange murder case--the victim appears to have been autopsied before being dumped in a field, but it's unknown at first what the FBI's interest in the case would be--possibly the victim knew something, possibly connected to the Brothers, a local branch of the Anabaptist group (a closed-off religious patriarchal commune), or possibly connected to a high-security military base that seems perilously close to both the Brothers and the horizontal oil drilling.

not so much a mystery, as there are way too many weird parts to try to fit together, and drags a bit at first (before the second murder victim, it's a lot of talking and wondering) and the description of Robie's skill in staying still to do surveillance is mentioned twice in nearly identical ways, but overall a satisfyingly twisty suspense plot (however improbable). Jamison (and Robie's female spypartner Reed) play relatively minor roles but Jamison does help to flesh out some kind of dynamic where Decker works on his people skills.

* contains at least one explosion, and some stormy weather, also a father that didn't support his gay son, and the son's subsequent suicide. Also a bunch of murders and killings, not super gory in description though. ( )

Synopsis: 'When Amos Decker and his FBI colleague Alex Jamison are called to London, North Dakota, they instantly sense that the thriving fracking town is ripe for trouble. The promise of a second gold rush has attracted an onslaught of newcomers all hoping for a windfall, and the community is growing faster than houses can be built. The sudden boom has also brought a slew of problems with it, including drugs, property crimes, prostitution—and now murder.
Decker and Jamison are ordered to investigate the death of a young woman named Irene Cramer, whose body was expertly autopsied and then dumped in the open—which is only the beginning of the oddities surrounding the case. As Decker and Jamison dig into Irene's life, they are shocked to discover that the woman who walked the streets by night as a prostitute was a teacher for a local religious sect by day—a sect operating on land once owned by a mysterious government facility that looms over the entire community.
London is a town replete with ruthless business owners, shady government officials, and religious outsiders, all determined to keep their secrets from coming out. When other murders occur, Decker will need all of his extraordinary memory and detective skills, and the assistance of a surprising ally, to root out a killer and the forces behind Cramer's death . . . before the boom town explodes.' From author's website
Review: I am so sorry that this is the last in this series. It was surprising to see Robbie, Reed, and the Blue Man; that really supported the story. Very good story! ( )

Excellent! ( )

What's not to love about ANY book featuring the Memory Man, Amos Decker? I haven't read all of them yet so Alex Jamison was new to me, and terrific. Books about Will Robie and Jessica Reil are new to me so I'm looking forward to more about the two o f them after this terrific introduction to them in this book. Every page is absorbing in Baldacci's books....you are right there in the midst of the story, always. ( )