Title:	Memory Man
	Author:	David Baldacci
	Published:	2015, Grand Central Publishing
	No. of Pages:	416
	Cover Price:	$28.00 Hardcover, $9.99 Kindle

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Prolific master storyteller, David Baldacci, introduces a new series featuring Amos Decker. Amos suffered a direct hit to the head while playing football years before, and after being brought back to life twice, will forever remember everything; his brain functions as a catalogue where he can bring up anything with perfect recall. Memory Man tells the story of Amos as he discovers his family murdered in his home. A talented detective for the police department in his small town of Burlington, he degenerates to a homeless tramp, and then manages to recover enough to do a bit of PI work. Almost 18 months after the murders of his family, there is a shooting at Amos’ high school, where he played football twenty years prior. When it becomes clear that the shootings and the murders of his family are connected, Amos teams up with his former partner to apprehend the perpetrator; not an easy task, since additional murders continue and everyone Amos knows becomes a potential victim.

Baldacci’s new characters in this series are very different from the norm; Decker is a tragic hero, and is not particularly likeable – he is a loner and difficult to deal with. He is sort of a cross between Lee Child’s Jack Reacher and Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch (albeit sloppy and overweight), but lacks the charm of either. Because of his condition – called hyperthymesia - he doesn’t have the ability to feel empathy or sympathy, making it difficult for readers to relate and like him. His former partner, Mary Lancaster, a “stick-thin” chain smoker who “was not pretty,” is good at her job and knows how to deal with Amos, but is also lacking in reader appeal.

While Memory Man is a well-written, fast moving novel with suspenseful twists and turns, as well as horrific bad guys who do unthinkable things with no conscience whatsoever, turning this novel into a series may be a mistake. The book is not easy to put down, and the story is fascinating, but more of the same may be too much. After finishing the book, readers may not want to deal with more Amos Becker. The bottom line is that this book is written with Baldacci’s signature easy style and is well-worth reading, but it won’t leave readers impatiently waiting for more.

This book was purchased with personal funds and no promotion of the book was solicited by the author or publisher.

This book may be purchased at Amazon: Memory Man, Hardcover
Memory Man, Kindle Edition