Book Review | MEMORY MAN by David Baldacci

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

     By now you've heard the idea that we humans only use about ten percent of our brains.  Baldacci's main character in his latest Thriller - Amos Decker - gets to see what it is like to use much more than that.  Due to a bone crushing hit suffered in his first NFL game, Decker is able to remember absolutely every second of his life thereafter.  So, you can imagine that the ability to perfectly recall what the weather was like, what shirt he was wearing, and every single syllable his wife spoke to him fifteen years, two months, one day and three hours ago, would come in awfully handy for a homicide detective.

Twenty years after the brain changing hit, and a year and a half after his family was brutally murdered, Amos Decker found himself at rock bottom, nothing to live for and living out of a Residence Inn, jobless.  That is, until his former partner informed him of a mass shooting at the local high school and as the story unfolds, there just might be a connection to the unsolved killing of his wife and daughter.

Baldacci, true to form, keeps the pages turning with constant new found clues and revelations from Decker that astound even the most seasoned of FBI agents.  Twists and turns abound and the story goes in directions that you won't see coming.

My favorite part of this novel, however, is the way Baldacci continuously described the way Decker could recall his memories and use them to help him with the case.  He positioned it in the way we use our DVR's as we speed through a television show.  How Decker had the ability to rewind and fast forward images in his mind to the exact moment in time that he wanted, and just like your woman would as she watches The Real Housewives of Wherever, he could pause and watch that moment play out in perfect clarity.  Total recall if you will.  It really added an edge to the story that gave a terrific inside look into what someone with Aspergers actually can do.

So, download or pick up a copy of Memory Man today.  Because, well, it's good.  And there really isn't a reason not to.  Unless you don't have the internet... or a car.  In that case, how are you reading this again?  Now I'm getting creeped out.

-B