Memory Man (Memory Man Series, 1)

Action packed... Twists and turns. Characters developed in an outstanding way! Highly recommend this book for those detective story lovers.

I don't normally review Kindle ebooks but I felt I must this time as many of the reviews I read were so critical I just had to buy the book to see for myself. And I'm glad I did!! If you want a fast paced thriller/murder that is enjoyable to read then this is the book for you - you will not be disappointed. At this point I should mention that I work as a book editor and need to be critical and judgmental when I edit and I read lots of fiction of varying authors and standards. So when read Kindle books I read for fun and tend to forgive the author for some unrealistic storytelling or inconsistencies as long as I enjoy the book and keep turning the pages. And there were some unrealistic parts. One that comes to mind is where the main character tells us there are approximately only twenty five people globally who have his mental condition of hyperthymesia (which is factual) but later in the book two individuals living within a reasonable proximity to each other become involved in the story - a bit of a stretch when there's only twenty five in the world. A intriguing part of the main character for me was his condition of hyperthymesia and incredible autobiographical memory. I work with returned war veterans (I have two jobs) who have mental issues due to traumatic personal events and find this area fascinating - particularly how their mental issues impact on their personal life. Most of the details of the hyperthymesia condition are clinically accurate so Baldacci has done his research in this area.Some of the reviews of this book indicate this part of the story was unrealistic but I don't agree. How traumatic events impact on specific individuals is extremely unpredictable. In short, probably not one of Baldacci's best books but good enough for four stars in my opinion. Reasonable storyline, fast paced, keeps you engaged, you can't help but identify with main character and good fun enjoyable read. And I kept turning the pages ( this is one of the main goals of an author). If this is what you look for in a book then this is the book for you.

This is a very entertaining story. It is not a full five stars, but close enough. The story is an involves an unusual, but very believable protagonist. A man, Amos Decker, with hyperthymesia (can remember everything) and synesthesia (sees things and events as numbers and colors) suffers a horrific tragedy, a crime that is not solved. His world crashes and his life goes sharply downhill. Over a year later, a strange man walks into the police station and confesses out of the blue. This is the beginning of a cascade of murders with Decker at the center of everything. The question is why. Can Decker's amazing memory both help find all the clues to seemingly perfect, yet inexplicable, crimes and remember what happened in his past that seemingly triggered everything? The story is a little unusual for Baldacci, because there are no military or political themes in the novel, although Decker is a former cop. Nevertheless, the story itself is compelling; I would find that more time had past while reading than I thought, I was that wrapped up in the book. Despite my best intentions, I lost sleep. The characters are well-crafted and believable as is the plot. There are a number of twists and puzzles throughout and the resolution is unexpected, but satisfying. I have only two fairly minor complaints. While the book starts with a bang, the story abruptly slows way down for the next few chapters. We are provided Decker's background, which is the crux of the whole story, in choppy, dragged out bits. This doesn't last for too long, but it was long enough that I worried that the whole book would be comprised of random chapters that hopped around dropping facts in a disjointed manner. However, even though there are necessarily times when Decker must look into the past, after the choppy start, the story is thankfully presented in a reasonably linear fashion. My second complaint is that the story periodically slows down, frequently so Decker can go eat, in order for Decker to contemplate his life. It does provide a fuller insight into his character while emphasizing his metamorphosis into an antisocial person, but it became a tad tiresome. Regardless, these negative bits did not ruin my overall delight in the novel. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys police procedurals, crime fiction, or just a really good story.

I love Balldalchi’s books. This one however was the best for me. I usually love books on our justice system, stories about lawters and really interesting cases. But, could not lay this ine down except to sleep!

Amos Decker died twice on the football field in his first and last professional game, but was revived both times. As a result, Amos sees numbers as colors, sees people’s moods as colors and literally remembers everything. The remembering everything served him well as a cop until his own family was slaughtered in their home. Amos wasn’t able to recover from his grief and his life quickly slid downhill. When the audio book begins in what I assume was a prologue in the print editions, readers are with Decker as he finds his family murdered. It is a very moving and graphically brutal description. From there, the book moves forward 16 months and after Amos has lost everything-his family, his job and really his sanity he is trying to pull himself back up. He’s living in a motel room and working as a PI. And then his world is turned upside down when Sebastian Leopold walks into the police station and confesses to the murder of Decker’s family. He slowly manages to worm his way into or at least on the peripheral of the investigation. By complete happenstance, his efforts to talk to the suspect finds him at the police headquarters the same morning that a mass shooting takes place at the local high school. The saying once a cop always a cop holds true and before long Amos starts thinking about the shooting and how it could have been pulled off. I have mixed feelings on this book. I loved the book and see this as the first in a new series, but it is very different from what regular readers of the Baldacci’s books in a more political setting expect, and not really at all like the stand alones either. I’m wondering how it will be received by people picking it up with “Baldacci” expectations. I also have a couple of thoughts on this as an audio book. I listened to this book on a road trip so there were very few interruptions along the way which proved to be important. The two crimes are each complex with many twists and the book has many characters. Without a print version to flip back through I would think it would be difficult to follow what was going on if there were too many interruptions or any lengthy interruption listening during the book. Secondly, I listened to the unabridged version. There are these sort of odd passages where the narrator’s voice is slightly different. It took my husband and I a couple of discs to figure out that the book had first been recorded in an abridged format and then the excluded passages put back in for the unabridged version-or at least that is what we decided since the “off-voice” parts all seemed to be more descriptive passages than plot important ones. I really liked Amos Decker as a protagonist and look forward to his next case. I would highly recommend this book as an audio but only if the book is going to be listened to with few interruptions such as a road trip. If the idea is to listen to it one disc at a time, then get the print version instead.

Yes, I enjoyed the book. Yes, the author did his research. Yes, he can write. That's not the problem. These are the problems I had with the book... Firstly, when they couldn't figure out how the shooter got out of the school so fast. The timing, the entrances, how he poofed, etc... As an intelligent person, I sat there and thought..."Uh, the sewers? Tunnels?" I mean ANY intelligent person who hears this ghost of a shooter seemingly disappeared without a trace, your intelligent mind immediately say's UNDERGROUND or attic access, but the investigators in the book don't join the readers mind until way too late. Why do I have to come up with this when no cop or FBI agent ever mentioned it? When the bunker was discovered, I had been on the right track, but wouldn't think of a bunker, because they aren't common. Still, my thoughts went to the right place. The reader isn't given any credit for educated thought. The author just solves the problems as it fits with the story and leaves all of us out here shaking our heads. Next, the whole "bro" thing. As a reader, again...this was a connection that Amos should have flipped through his memories right away and his old partner and every single FBI agent should have asked him about this long before the book got there. The reader thinks of it first...again. If you don't give us enough credit out here, then all of it doesn't work. But then...The "bro" thing turns out to be a whole lotta nothing. A brotherhood? Very thin. Then the conclusion came. The ENTIRE reason why Belinda did allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll of this was because he announced a career choice? He never knew her background or her pain. This reasoning for a slew of very planned crimes was really, really thin...Even more thin than the bro thing. It didn't work. Yeah, yeah, I get that a messed up mind can do all sorts of things, but I expected a big reveal...not some lame excuse for why she was ticked at him. I remember thinking both Belinda and Sebastian were utter morons. She had a great reason for going after the cops in her town and her parents and the doctor at the institute? Going after Amos? Didn't work for me. All of that because he wanted to be a cop? Yup. The writing was excellent, but when the reader can come up with things way before the cops do, then I have a tough time buying into the story as a whole and I just felt the murderer didn't have enough motive, regardless of her past.

MEMORY MAN (Memory Man Series Book 1) By David Baldacci MY REVIEW 5-Stars I just finished reading the introductory novel of Baldacci's series featuring "memory man" Amos Decker, some four years after it was published. The lunacy of that is that I wanted to read the book when it first hit the shelves. Both the protagonist and the premise of the novel were intriguing to me. What could be more riveting than the first person account of a gifted acquired savant with hyperthymesia (an infallible memory with the ability to recall any event in the library of his life experiences with the accuracy of a DVR)...who is lured into a cat-and-mouse game with a psychopath who is responsible for murdering not only his family but also for an impressive body count of innocent victims. Decker puts it nicely when he comments that "Menace coupled with brains and cunning. It's a very dangerous combination..." This book was "unputdownable", a phrase I do not use all that frequently. By 25% into the novel Amos had confronted Leopold, a mystery man who has confessed to murdering his family. His former boss Mac and his ex partner Mary have convinced him to consult on the case of a lone shooter who escaped without detection after a killing spree at his former high school. Amos has stepped away from his isolated existence as an unkempt obese intermittently employed free-lance Private Investigator. I am vested and care about Amos and his character arc from that moment forward. The murders of Decker’s family and the massacre at Mansfield are later determined to be inextricably connected. The multi-layered, complex plotting of this sensational story line is carried out beautifully by Baldacci, who is a master story teller, great with creating believable dialogue, and adept at character development. The author keeps us guessing virtually until the end of the novel, causing the reader to constantly, almost continuously absorb new facts and revise what he or she thought were the true factors in the case. I personally love forensic science, police procedurals, abnormal psychology, criminal profiling or perhaps more accurately behavioral analysis. This debut novel of a new series featuring Amos Decker is a real winner! Who could bet against a unique and brilliant good guy like the forlorn and cynical Decker pitting his wits up against a diabolical serial killer with a vendetta against our hero, unpredictable plot twists and revelations almost at every turn, relentless pacing with nail-biting cliffhangers during the course of the plot's story line.

First Sentence: Amos Decker would forever remember all three of their violent deaths in the most paralyzing shade of blue. Amos Decker made it to the NFL, but suffered a hit in his first game that killed him; twice. He was revived and forever changed. His second career was as a police detected. That career nearly destroyed his life when his family was murdered, and Amos ended up in the bottle and on the street. Just starting to put himself back together and working as a freelance PI, Decker is called back to help the Police after a man confesses to the murder of his family. Is it a lie, or can Decker finally learn the truth? The opening chapter is wonderfully written yet excruciatingly difficult to read. Baldacci perfectly balances both the horror and the pain of protagonist, Amos Decker. He draws a painfully accurate picture of a person hitting rock bottom, and then working to survive and rebuild. Decker is a strong protagonist and a memorable one, both for his perspective…”How can killing so many people ever make sense?” she said hotly. “It doesn’t have to make sense to us. Just to the ones who did it.”…and for the conditions of synesthesia (seeing people as colors) and hyperthymesia (being able to recall almost every day of their lives in near perfect detail, as well as public events that hold some personal significance to them) with which he now must live. Although they help him in solving crimes, it’s hard to imagine trying to live with them. It is fascinating watching the way Decker tracks the motive of the case back into the past. Baldacci likes plot twists. One finds oneself thinking you know where he’s going, and he may go partway where you expect, but it’s a tease as he doesn’t quite go there. The result of the twist at the end is definitely not expected. No matter what else, the climax is brutal, yet unexpected and very well done. The final chapter is touching the very gratifying. “Memory Man” has great characters, well done suspense, excellent plot twists and leaves one anxious for the next book. MEMORY MAN (PI-Amos Decker-Burlington-Contemp) – EX Baldacci, David – 1st in series Grand Central Publishing – April 2015

Je n'avais jamais lu de livre de David Baldacci. J'ai remarqué que beaucoup de ses livres étaient des best-seller, donc j'ai décidé de découvrir cet auteur en découvrant ce premier lieu. Je ne suis absolument pas déçu. L'histoire est vraiment bien faite. Les personnes sont sympas. L'auteur sait nous tenir en alleinne. De plus, contrairement à beaucoup de romans policiers, il n'y a pas d'histoire d'amour interminable qui ne sert à rien dans le sénario. L'auteur va a l'essentiel, et nous livre vraiment un excellent roman. Je vais probablement me laisser tenter par la suite !

Das erste Buch von Baldacci das ich gelesen habe. Es werden definitiv Weitere folgen. Sehr gut und verständlich geschrieben - natürlich bracht man einen gewissen Grad Sprachkenntnis. Die Figuren sind toll, die Story gut durchdacht. Sie bietet einige Überraschungen und hat mich einfach mitgerissen. Die letzten 200 Seiten habe ich bis spät in die Nacht zu Ende gelesen - Aufhören war nicht möglich :-)

David Baldacci’s "Memory Man" is first in a new series by this prolific author featuring Amos Decker, probably one of the most unusual characters he has ever created. Amos is 6’ 5” (195cm) tall, weighs in at 25 stone (158kg) and in recent times has let himself go. He now lives in a one room apartment in a run-down hotel. Once a police detective, he returned home one evening to find his wife and daughter brutally murdered. The killer was never found. In his younger days, Amos was a professional footballer but his career was cut short when he sustained a serious head injury. When he recovered he found he had unusual skills, medically known as synesthesia and hyperthymesia, the latter providing him with an almost perfect memory of events. Following a school shooting, Amos, who’d been working as a private detective, is called in as a consultant to the local police department. While the perpetrator remains a mystery, it becomes clear that there is a personal connection with Amos; every step he takes in the investigation brings him closer to identifying this brutal killer – and, if he is not careful, to becoming a victim himself. Sixty-two years old and no sign of slowing down, David Baldacci remains one of the leaders in the field of thriller writing. Just when some of his fans think he couldn’t come up with a character much different from those in his earlier series, up pops Amos Decker, his most unusual, off-beat character yet with a most unusual skill-set. And just to make the story even more relevant to today’s world, his opening scene involves an American high school shooting. Baldacci’s brilliant characterisation isn’t limited to Amos; there are other characters too who are three-dimensional and are sure to feature in future novels in this series. As always, Baldacci writes in a lucid, easy-to-read style, yet in a way that is sure to grip the reader from beginning to end. "Memory Man" is a flawlessly told tale by this master storyteller.

Great story.. bit slow in the beginning but grips you and makes you want to read in one sitting. Great character buildup.

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