Total Control - Hardcover

David Baldacci

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446520950 ISBN 13: 9780446520959

Publisher: Warner Books, 1997

Synopsis

When her husband mysteriously disappears in a plane crash into the Virginia countryside, a devastated wife must sort out truth from lies in this page-turning New York Times bestseller.

Sidney Archer has it all: a husband she loves, a job at which she excels, and a cherished young daughter. Then, as a plane plummets into the Virginia countryside, everything changes. And suddenly there is no one whom Sidney Archer can trust.

Jason Archer is a rising young executive at Triton Global, the world's leading technology conglomerate. Determined to give his family the best of everything, Archer has secretly entered into a deadly game. He is about to disappear -- leaving behind a wife who must sort out his lies from his truths, an accident team that wants to know why the plane he was ticketed on crashed, and a veteran FBI agent who wants to know it all.

About this title

About the Author

DAVID BALDACCI is a global #1 bestselling author, and one of the world's favorite storytellers. His books are published in over forty-five languages and in more than eighty countries, with 150 million copies sold worldwide. His works have been adapted for both feature film and television. David Baldacci is also the cofounder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. Still a resident of his native Virginia, he invites you to visit him at DavidBaldacci.com and his foundation at WishYouWellFoundation.org.

From the Back Cover

Sidney Archer has the world. A husband she loves. A job at which she excels, and a cherished young daughter. Then, as a plane plummets into the Virginia countryside, everything changes. And suddenly there is no one whom Sidney Archer can trust. Jason Archer is a rising young executive at Triton Global, the world's leading technology conglomerate. Determined to give his family the best of everything, Archer has secretly entered into a deadly game of cat and mouse. He is about to disappear - leaving behind a wife who must sort out his lies from his truths, an aircrash investigation team that wants to know why the plane he was ticketed on suddenly fell from the sky, and a veteran FBI agent who wants to know it all. From Seattle to Washington, D.C., from New Orleans to Maine, the hunt for Jason Archer follows a trail as complex as the world he lived and worked in - a world of enormously powerful computers, a multimillion-dollar takeover deal, titanic financial standoffs, artificial intelligence, and the Internet. With brilliant minds colliding, ruthless men waging battles of intimidation, rainmakers going toe-to-toe with killers, and security specialists making a fortune trying to plug the holes, the startling truth behind Jason Archer's disappearance explodes into a sinister plot with the murder of the country's single most powerful individual. And soon Archer's wife, Sidney, aided by the relentless and sharp-eyed FBI agent Lee Sawyer, will plunge straight into the violence that is leaving behind a trail of dead bodies and shocking, exposed secrets...

Reviews

In a hugger-mugger attempt to follow up his bestselling Absolute Power (1996), Baldacci pits a young widow against corporate villains who want her silenced at all costs. When her husband Jason apparently dies in the crash of a jetliner bound from Washington to L.A., Sidney Archer's near- perfect world implodes. A high-powered attorney working on the latest merger planned by Triton Global (a high-tech multinational that employed Jason on hush-hush computer projects), she can't accept that the beloved father of her precocious little daughter Amy is dead. Sidney's subliminal faith is not misplaced. Jason, who had shopped his company's darkest secrets in an effort to make a quick financial killing, switched planes before takeoff and is alive but not well in Seattle. On the day of his funeral, Sidney hears from him via phone. She keeps her own counsel, but Lee Sawyer (an FBI agent assigned to the case) is suspicious because available evidence suggests that Jason not only sabotaged the downed aircraft but also engineered a megabuck embezzlement. Presciently, however, the missing man had encrypted his proof of Triton's misdeeds on a duplicate disk that he mailed to himself before disappearing. Eager to get a printout that could clear Jason, Sidney sets out on a roundabout odyssey that takes her from suburban Virgina to Manhattan and points north. Although Triton's corrupt CEO and his murderous, stop-at-nothing minions are on her trail, clever Sidney foils them at almost every turn. With help from a besotted Sawyer, the pistol-packin' mama also begins unraveling the mystery of her mate's vanishing act. In a violent climactic confrontation on the stormy coast of Maine, the two learn the truth about an immense conspiracy in which Jason's fate is but a sideshow. A talky, tedious tale of an unlikely heroine's desperate life on the run, longer on confusion than suspense or narrative coherence. (Main selection of the Literary Guild; $500,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

released in February 1997.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sidney Archer is devastated when she hears that the plane carrying her husband to Los Angeles has crashed. But her nightmare begins when she learns he'd traded identities and flown to Seattle instead. Evidence suggests that Jason Archer was selling corporate secrets to a high-tech rival. Soon Sidney herself is caught in a web of intrigue as wealthy men vie for more power and money. Fired from her law firm, pursued by hired killers eager to recover an encrypted computer disk Jason had mailed to himself, Sydney finally trusts only the FBI agent who believes her innocent. No one is immune here from high-tech snooping and violent death. Baldacci writes strictly for action, not wasting time developing characters or setting. Few books have higher heaps of dead millionaires at their conclusion. The scant literary value won't deter those who snatched up his first book, the best-selling Absolute Power (LJ 11/15/95), or keep them from standing in line to see the film version, due in February. Public libraries will need a copy or two to meet demand, especially with a major publicity blitz planned.
-?Kathy Piehl, Mankato State Univ. Minn.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Baldacci burst on the thriller scene with Absolute Power (1995), which stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for more than four months. Total Control is even more suspenseful, and it is also far more interesting in terms of the questions it raises about how much technology controls us. Baldacci's ruthless characters wield the latest in action weaponry, laptops, and cell phones. Everyone still carries guns, but they're fighting over computer disks and trying to outsmart each other with frantically typed e-mail. Except for a sabotaged airliner that hits the ground with enough impact to practically disintegrate, creating a huge crater in rural Virginia and killing a couple of hundred innocent people, and a bunch of vicious murders, all the crime is online, involving the stealing of top-secret financial documents pertaining to high-tech companies with names such as Triton and CyberCom. Baldacci's heroes are also a mix of the old and the new: a bighearted FBI guy and a beautiful, high-powered attorney who really just wants to stay home and take care of the kids. Maybe so, but when her husband disappears, Sidney Archer transforms herself from corporate deal-maker into a gun-toting momma with a sure shot and enough smarts to outmaneuver her very angry, very evil assailants. Good and slick. Donna Seaman

Edition details

• Publisher: Warner Books
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446520950
• ISBN 13: 9780446520959
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 520