Absolute Power by David Baldacci

 Absolute Power by David Baldacci - 550 pages, Audiobook - 18.5 hours

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A grizzled professional cat burglar gets trapped inside the bedroom closet of one of the world's richest men, only to witness, through a one-way mirror, two Secret Service agents kill the billionaire's young wife as she tries to fight off the drunken sexual advances of the nation's chief executive. Running for his life, but not before he picks up a bloodstained letter opener that puts the president at the scene of the crime, the burglar becomes the target of a clandestine manhunt orchestrated by leading members of the executive branch.

Meanwhile, Jack Graham, once a public defender and now a high-powered corporate attorney, gets drawn into the case because the on-the-lam burglar just happens to be the father of his former financee, a crusading Virginia prosecutor.

Embroidering the narrative are the hero's broken romance, the prosecutor's confused love-hate for her burglar father, the relentless investigation by a northern Virginia cop, the dilemma of government agents trapped in a moral catch-22, and the amoral ambitions of a sexy White House Chief of Staff, all with a sociopathic president at its center.

Especially since this was David Baldacci's debut novel, it's exceedingly good. It captures your attention from the very beginning and just keeps going from there. While there are a lot of characters and a lot of moving parts, it never gets confusing and kept me wondering how it would end throughout the entire book.

THE NIGHT FLOWERS by SARA HERCHENROETHER

 

THE NIGHT FLOWERS by SARA HERCHENROETHER (Pgs 320)

People tend to think of us as shadows. Blurred black mist. Often, it’s “out of the corner of my eye.” People sense the cold. I’ve heard of ghost hunters who use a tape measure, laying it on the ground to mark our boundaries. I don’t want to be measured.

In 1983, deep in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, the bodies of a young woman and two children were found. Who were they? How did they get there?



Thirty years later, two women find themselves drawn to the cold case. Librarian Laura MacDonald begins her own investigation as a way to distract herself from breast cancer treatments and becomes consumed by her search for answers. Jean Martinez is a veteran detective determined to keep working cold cases for the Sierra County police force even as her family begs her to retire. With only fragments from dusty case files and a witness who doesn’t want to remember, this unlikely duo is determined—no matter the cost—to uncover the truth behind the murders. And with their help, the woman in the woods is finally able to tell her story on her own terms and summon the power to be found.