He was about to speak again, to convince her to wait for help. He had his lines ready. He was about to deliver them. They would make her put the gun down, he was sure of it.

And then came the oppressive thud of Mary Lancaster’s body hitting the floor. He was certain she was dead. Lancaster had always been a good planner, results oriented. Such people excelled at killing themselves. Mine. He had come close to filling it on several occasions, once by his own hand, while staring at his murdered child as she sat, in death, in her own house. David Baldacci is a global #1 bestselling author, and one of the world’s favorite storytellers. His books are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 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.She cut in. “Earl doesn’t know that I am alone. He wouldn’t want that. He’s normally very careful about that.” Mary? Mary!” he shouted into the phone. When no response came, his energy wilted. Why are you screaming? She’s gone. You know she is. I have a gun, Amos. My old service automatic. I haven’t held it in years. But it fits my hand so fine. I remembered the gun safe combination, can you believe that? After I forgot pretty much everything else, I remembered that. I suppose it was…an omen of sorts,” she added offhandedly.

Another David Baldacci book that was a blast to read. It's Long Shadows and I received it from Pan Macmillan via Netgalley. It will be published on the 10th of November.

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Hachette Book Group is a leading book publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the third-largest publisher in the world. Social Media He was alive. She was not. Right now it was a difference without significant distinction for him. He sat there as his little room was lit by the electric blue of a death that had touched him from nearly a thousand miles distant. The casket had been closed. The gunshot had been fired upward through the mouth, leaving Mary Lancaster beyond the magic of the mortician’s cosmetics, and thus unviewable. I know, Mary. And I wish you didn’t have to deal with it.” He stopped and struggled to come up with more sympathetic words; it was a task that would have been easy for his old self, and nearly impossible for his current one. “I…I wish there was a cure.” For you, too,” she said. “There is no cure for you, either.” In these words he could sense her seeking some level of solidarity with him in diseases of the mind that would end up doing them both in.

A single shot, which he believed—because he knew Lancaster—had been delivered with deliberate care and competent accuracy. She would have chosen the temple, the chin, or the open mouth as her entry point. Any one of those would get the job done. But also not alike,” she retorted in a tone she hadn’t used before. It was an escalation of sorts, at least he took it that way. He said the words he needed to say to his wife and child, and then rose from the cold ground and glanced to the left. There was an empty plot there.Since Baldacci is the absolute master of provocative mini-twists in his plots, the narrative slides through a maze of zigs and zags.” Baldacci is to be congratulated on how he sets up the story, creates three-dimensional characters, and layers seemingly unrelated situations one on top of the other until the resolution becomes startlingly clear. Fans of Baldacci’s 'memory man'character will be highly satisfied with Long Shadowsand anxiously await the next installment in the series." What about tomorrow?” she said, interrupting these thoughts. “Will I remember her tomorrow? Or Earl? Or you? Or…me? So what does it matter? Can you tell me that?” I just wanted to hear your voice. It just seemed so important to me right now. I’ve been working up the courage to call you.”

He sighed as the tragic sincerity of her words hit him especially hard. “I know, Mary. I understand why you feel that way.” He decided to reroute the conversation. “How are Earl and Sandy? Sleeping, I suppose.” That was Mary’s husband and their daughter. He had still been on the line when the police had arrived at Lancaster’s house. He had talked first to the officer, and then the detective, a man he knew from the old days. There had been sadness exchanged on the loss of a life well known to them, a grudging acceptance of the choice made, and of the motive behind it. A thriller with bloody murders and plenty of suspects and featuring an unlikely partnership between two FBI investigators. Thuli Madonsela speaks about the importance of SA's political future in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.Soon it seems like everything is against them. The two murders do not make sense. They were killed in two totally different ways. The one shot dead in a very clinical way and the other stabbed 10 times in a seeming crime of passion? They went to visit Earl’s mother in Cleveland. She’s not doing well. Probably won’t be long for this world. She’s old, and gaga like me, actually.” She continued as though he hadn’t spoken. She said, “I just remembered her before I called you. And only because I looked at a photo with her name on it. I forgot I had a daughter, Amos. For a time there was no Sandy Lancaster in existence for me. Can you understand how…terrible that is?” He had served justice in both cases, but it was, without doubt, a hollow outcome, marred by the fact that the justice was delivered too late for the victims. No amount of justice could return the dead to the living; the satisfaction gained from learning the truth was dwarfed by the loss. He had gone there the month before for some routine tests, which they had done on him annually ever since he had been there as a patient after his football injury.