Review: Deliver Us From Evil

Deliver Us From Evil by David Baldacci

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Another solid novel by David Baldacci. I did felt that it was a bit long and could have been edited better. But I loved reading all the detailed descriptions, even though it went a bit too gory for me at times.

Spoiler Ahead. Consider yourself warned!!

From what I have heard, Baldacci does not have any immediate plans to take this story forward. Even if he wanted to, there is no clear direction for the franchise to go. Does he make the future book only about Shaw? But then how unique would Shaw be from Baldacci's Will Robie and John Puller? It's his partnership (or I guess just his association) with Katie James that makes Shaw stand out from Puller or Robie. I'm not sure if officially Baldacci calls the series "Shaw series" only, but I seem to remember having the series referred to as "Katie James and A. Shaw series" someplace online. If Baldacci wants to explore this partnership further, he has to find a better plot to make Shaw and Katie part of the same story again. The romance-fan-trapped-deep-within-my-brain wonders if Baldacci would leave us hanging after Katie has admitted to herself that she is in love with Shaw.

Other than that, I'm still geeking out over the many references Baldacci made to other mystery authors; Agatha Christie, Lee Child and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!! I presume they were a fanboy'sman's nod to his favorite authors. Now would it have been too meta if Katie had picked up the latest King and Maxwell instead of a Lee Child.

“He rose, placed another small log on the fire, sat back down in his armchair, and opened his book.
"What are you reading?" Reggie asked.
"On a wild night like this? Agatha Christie, of course. I still feel compelled to see if Hercule Poirot's 'little gray cells' will do their job one more time. It seems to often inspire my own brain, however inferior it might be to the diminutive Belgian's.”

“That's because superstition has it that the first person who gets up from a party of thirteen will die?"
"Precisely. I believe Agatha Christie even wrote a mystery about it.”

“Katie James kept waking up. It was nothing unusual; it was just how she was. A noise here, an internal thought there, a nightmare that seemed so real she could touch it, kept hammering away. She finally rose, got some water and settled in an armchair, flicked on a reading light, and picked up the latest Lee Child thriller.”

“And he has guns and dogs that would make the Hound of Baskervilles seem like a bleeding Pekinese.”



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