In All Honesty, I'd Rather Someone Would Deliver Us from Shaw!
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Author: David Baldacci
Title: Deliver Us from Evil Genre: thriller What can I say about the latest book from David Baldacci? How about this: it was so uninteresting that twelve hours after I finished reading it, I couldn't remember the title. Deliver... me... no, deliver... us... yeah: Deliver Us from Evil. Shaw is back. Like Indonesians and Icelanders, he has just one name: Shaw. When you're a gorgeous six-foot-six hunk of superhuman man-hunting machine, you apparently don't need a first name - or maybe you don't need a last name. Whatever. All of a sudden, we learn that the supersecret agency for which Shaw toils (if you call jet-setting about the capitals of Europe "toil") is not the only one out there looking for bad people. Another unnamed agency, this one based in the UK, has the same mission; though this agency seems more of a 501(c)(3)-style nonprofit monster-killer outfit. Low-budget notwithstanding, they were able to bag a female version of Shaw: Regina "Reggie" Campion. Irresistibly beautiful, undeniably intelligent, unbelievably deadly: if she were eleven inches taller, she'd be Shaw in drag. Reggie's agency has finished its core purpose: the removal of the last surviving Nazis (the opening scene, in which Reggie "seduces" a 96-year-old former SS trooper, is unintentionally amusing). Instead of disbanding the corps, however, "the Professor" decides to re-focus on more modern monsters. And that's Shaw's turf... With both agencies simultaneously attempting to take down a galaxy-glass bad boy (Evan Waller, aka Fedir Kuchin), it's inevitable that the two would cross paths - and that, in the world of Baldacci, that it would be love at first sight. When the hit(s) on Waller/Kuchin go south, Shaw (working alone) and Reggie's team of three scatter to the winds. Unfortunately, billionaire Waller/Kuchin has very good sources and plenty of ill-gotten gains with which to pay them. For Shaw and Reggie, he intends that payback be far beyond "a biyotch." Shaw and Reggie are destined for a showdown with a monster. The only questions? Who will be deus ex machine and how will he show up? Baldacci's second Shaw novel, Deliver Us from Evil once again inhabits the world of super-secret agencies charged with ridding humanity of its worst evildoers, a world Baldacci introduced in The Whole Truth. To support his definition of irredeemable evil, Baldacci treats readers to plenty of detail about inhuman monsters and their private fantasies. Not content to merely hint at the manner in which Kuchin is a soulless monster, Baldacci finds it necessary to describe his torture sessions in graphic detail: to imply that Deliver Us from Evil is gratuitously violent is an understatement. Baldacci's use of gratuitous violence and stereotypical or superficial characters must have been intended to distract his readers from his lack of a plot. Instead of a solution in which Shaw and Reggie pit their skills against Waller/Kuchin in a final showdown, Baldacci painted himself into a corner by giving the villain not only all the aces, but all the face cards as well. As we reach page 391, it is obvious that without divine providence, the two heroes (and the two friends with them) are doomed. By page 401, it's all over but the shouting, thanks to a visit from "an angel" that is stupefying in its clumsiness. This event creates a finale for Baldacci's "thriller" that may well be the most contrived this reader has ever seen. Want non-stop action dripping bodily fluids (of all types) from page one to page 406? Go ahead and read Deliver Us from Evil. Want a book that makes sense? Read something else all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
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