Thursday, April 07, 2011

Stone Cold by David Baldacci .

Casino king and vicious thug Jerry Bagger is hunting Annabelle Conroy, who conned him out of millions. Oliver Stone and the Camel Club must marshal all their resources to protect her.

Stone Cold involves the members of the Camel Club and follows on from the collectors , although this is a stand-alone novel. You do not need to have read Camel Club or the collectors to enjoy Stone Cold.

Stone Cold was written in 2007 and has 511 pages. It is a tale of cunning and lies. It is like a made-for-TV movie. The pace is steady and the plot is straight forward. There are two separate plots that are linked only by the characters and do not affect each other. The action is evenly split across a range of twelve characters with major parts played by three of them, two of whom are members of the Camel Club.

I felt a lack of empathy for all the characters, who all shared an arrogance of believing "I'm the best". The story is clearly written but I thought "Why do they bother?". This is not the happiest of novels as there is a high death toll from needless violence. There is nothing special about this novel. Stone Cold did however have a good ending.

There was some mild humour sprinkled throughout this book, for example on page 81...

"Now let's try the name thing one more time. What's yours?"
"Oliver Stone, like I told you the last four times you asked."
"Let me see some ID."
"And as I told you four times before, I don't have any."
The other agent said incredulously, "How does anybody in the twenty-first century not have ID?"
Stone looked at him, bemused. "I know who I am. And I don't really care if no one else does."

...Sadly there is nothing special or to recommend about this book. Stone Cold is a poor novel, it is not one of David's best and I shall vote it only 2 stars on Goodreads . The collectors was a good read but Stone Cold, like it's appropriate title, leaves me Stone Cold.
Comments: Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]





<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to Posts [Atom]