Hour Game (King & Maxwell) - Hardcover

Baldacci, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446531081 ISBN 13: 9780446531085

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2004

Synopsis

He's copying famous serial killers and the game has just begun.


A woman is found murdered in the woods. It seems like a simple case but it soon escalates into a terrible nightmare. Someone is replicating the killing styles of the most infamous murderers of all time. No one knows this criminal's motives...or who will die next.


Two ex-Secret Service agents, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, have been hired to defend a man's innocence in a burglary involving an aristocratic, dysfunctional family. Then a series of secrets leads the partners right into the frantic hunt that is confounding even the FBI. Now King and Maxwell are playing the Hour Game, uncovering one horrifying revelation after another and putting their lives in danger. For the closer they get to the truth, the closer they get to the most shocking surprise
of all.

About this title

Reviews

Baldacci's last book, Split Second, was a relatively weak offering from this bestselling author, sunk by a cartoonish villain and absurd plot. But it did introduce two of Baldacci's (Absolute Power, etc.) most memorable characters, former Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, in business together as private investigators in smalltown Wrightsburg, Va. Baldacci is back in form, and King and Maxwell reappear in this utterly absorbing, complex mystery-thriller that spins in unexpected directions. The novel starts as a serial-killer thriller, for there's a murderer at work in Wrightsburg whose selection of victims appears random but whose modus operandi, differing from kill to kill, mimics the work of a notorious serial killer—the Zodiac killer, John Wayne Gacy, etc. The fifth victim is local resident and international tycoon Robert E. Lee Battle. King and Maxwell have already been tangling with the gothic horror show of a dysfunctional Southern family that is the Battles, as they've been hired to help prove the innocence of a Battle handyman accused of stealing from the family. Then that handyman is murdered, and the duo (along with a clueless local sheriff and an obnoxious FBI agent) must race to figure out if the same killer is behind all the murders and, if so, why. There are terrific action sequences sprinkled throughout, and plenty of suspense, and the King/Maxwell relationship, while not romantic, emits sparks. It's Baldacci's portrayal of smalltown Southern life, however, and his sharp characterizations of the Battles, from the bombastic Bobby and his regal widow to his weird extended family, that give the novel texture and depth: this is Baldacci's most accomplished tale since his nonthriller Wish You Well, and it rivals that novel in its social commentary. Despite fair clues, few if any readers will ID the villain (villains?) before they're revealed, and a snappy surprise ending will have Baldacci's many fans remembering why they love this author so much.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, the former Secret Service agents from Baldacci's previous outing, Split Second (2003), are on the trail of a serial killer in this new novel. King and Maxwell have just gone into business together as private investigators when Michelle discovers the body of a young woman in the woods. The body was posed with a wristwatch stopped at 1:00. Two high-school students are the next victims; both have watches on their wrists--the boy's reads 2:00, the girl's 3:01. King and Maxwell aid the police while working on their own case: a burglary in the house of Remmy Battle, a wealthy, tough southerner whose husband, Bobby, lies in a coma at the local hospital. The prime suspect is Junior Deaver, whose fingerprints are found at the crime scene. But Junior swears he's innocent. The victim list keeps growing: a successful high-powered lawyer and then Bobby Battle himself. Soon King begins to suspect that the serial killer might not be choosing his victims at random, and he believes one of the murders is the work of a different killer. The plot doesn't hold together perfectly, even starting out a bit slow, but it recovers to build to an exciting finish. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Hour Game

By David Baldacci

Warner Books

Copyright © 2004 Columbus Rose, Ltd.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-446-53108-1

Chapter One

THE MAN IN THE RAIN SLICKER WALKED slightly bent over, his breathinglabored and his body sweaty. The extra weight he was bearing, thoughnot all that substantial, was awkwardly placed, and the terrain wasuneven. It was never an easy thing to tote a dead body through thewoods in the middle of the night. He shifted the corpse to his leftshoulder and trudged on. The soles of his shoes bore nodistinguishing marks; not that it would have mattered, since therain quickly washed away any traces of footprints. He'd checked theforecast; the rain was why he was here. The inclement weather wasthe best friend he could ask for.

Aside from the dead body draped over his sturdy shoulder, the manwas also remarkable for the black hood he wore, on which wasstitched an esoteric symbol that ran down the length of the cloth.It was a circle with a crosshairs through its middle. Probablyinstantly recognizable to anyone over the age of fifty, the logoonce inspired a dread that had significantly eroded with time. Itdidn't matter that no one "alive" would see him wearing the hood; hetook grim satisfaction in its lethal symbolism.

Within ten minutes he'd reached the location he'd carefully selectedon an earlier visit, and laid the body down with a reverence thatbelied the violent manner in which the person had died. He took adeep breath and held it as he undid the telephone wire holding thebundle closed, and unwrapped the plastic. She was young withfeatures that had been attractive two days prior; the woman was notmuch to look at now. The soft blond hair fell away from thegreenish-tinged skin, revealing closed eyes and bloated cheeks. Hadthe eyes been open, they might have still held the startled gaze ofthe deceased as she endured her own murder, an experience replicatedroughly thirty thousand times each year in America.

He slid the plastic all the way free and laid the woman on her back.Then he let out his breath, fought the urge to retch caused by thestench of the body, and sucked in another lungful of air. Using oneof his gloved hands and his light, he searched for and found thesmall, forked branch that he'd earlier placed in the bramble nearby.He used this to support the woman's forearm, which he'd positionedsuch that it was pointing to the sky. The body's rigor mortis,though rapidly fading, had made the task difficult, but he wasstrong and had finally levered the stiffened limb to the correctangle. He took the watch out of his pocket, checked with hisflashlight to make sure it was set properly, and placed it aroundthe dead woman's wrist.

Though far from a religious man, he knelt over the body and muttereda brief prayer, cupping his hand over his mouth and nose as he didso.

"You weren't directly responsible, but you were all I had. Youdidn't die in vain. And I believe you're actually better off." Didhe really believe what he had just said? Maybe not. Maybe it didn'tmatter.

He looked at the dead woman's face, studying her featuresscrupulously as though a scientist observing a particularlyfascinating experiment. He had never killed another person before.He'd made it quick and, he hoped, painless. In the dull, misty nightthe woman seemed surrounded by a yellowish glow, as though she'dalready become a spirit.

He drew farther back and examined the area all around, checking forany extraneous items that might lead to evidence against him. Hediscovered only a piece of cloth from his hood that had caught on abush near where the body lay. Careless, you can't afford that. Heplaced it in his pocket. He spent several more minutes looking forother such items nearing microscopic size.

In the world of criminal investigation it was these forensic"no-see-ums" that did one in. A single drop of blood, semen orsaliva, a smudge of fingerprint, a hair follicle with a bit ofDNA-littered root attached, and the police could be reading you yourrights while prosecutors circled hungrily nearby. Unfortunately,even full awareness of that reality offered little protection. Everycriminal, no matter how careful, left potentially incriminatingmaterial at the crime scene. Thus, he'd taken great care to have nodirect physical contact with the dead woman as though she were aninfectious agent that could cause a fatal disease.

He rolled up the plastic and pocketed the telephone cord, checkedthe watch once more and then slowly made his way back to his car.

Behind him lay the dead woman, her hand upraised to the wateryheavens. Her watch was slightly luminous in the dark and made a dullbeacon for her new resting place. She wouldn't remain undiscoveredfor long. Dead bodies aboveground rarely did, even in places asisolated as this.

As he drove off, the hooded man used his finger to trace the symbolon his hood, making the sign of the cross at the same time. Thecrosshairs symbol also appeared on the face of the watch he'd placedon the dead woman's wrist. That should certainly get a rise out ofthem. He took a breath full of excitement as well as dread. Foryears he had imagined that this day would never come. For years hiscourage had faltered. Now that the first step had been taken, hefelt a great sense of empowerment and liberation.

He shifted into third gear and sped up, his tires grabbing theslicked roadway and holding firm as the darkness swallowed up thelights of his blue VW. He wanted to get to where he was going asfast as possible.

He had a letter to write.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Hour Gameby David Baldacci Copyright ©2004 by Columbus Rose, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446531081
• ISBN 13: 9780446531085
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448