The Printed Page

Title: True Blue
Author/website: David Baldacci
454 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication date: October ’09
Genre: Suspense, thriller, police procedural
Would I recommend it: Yes, yes, and a yes.
I loved it! Mr. Baldacci is an author on my auto-buy list so it could be I’m a bit bias. In True Blue we meet sisters Beth and Mace Perry and attorney Roy Kingman. Beth Perry is the DC Chief of Police and Mace’s staunchest supporter. Mace Perry is a disgraced police officer looking to clear her name. Roy Kingman is going about his Monday morning business until he finds a murdered coworker and gets caught up in Mace’s plan to get reinstated to the DC police force. Of course nothing is what it appears on the surface in a Baldacci thriller and pretty soon the reader on is a wild ride through government corruption. A seemingly simple murder turns into a government money laundering scheme dealing with some big, bad overseas players and sanctioned by those in some of the highest offices in our nation. Just as in his Camel Club and Sean King/Michelle Maxwell series in True Blue Mr. Baldacci introduces a trio of characters that I’m looking forward to building a long-term relationship with.

Mason “Mace” Perry was a firebrand cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything-her badge, her career, her freedom-and spent two years in prison. Now she’s back on the outside and focused on one mission: to be a cop once more. Her only shot to be a true blue again is to solve a major case on her own, and prove she has the right to wear the uniform. But even with her police chief sister on her side, she has to work in the shadows: A vindictive U.S. attorney is looking for any reason to send Mace back behind bars. Then Roy Kingman enters her life.

Roy is a young lawyer who aided the poor until he took a high-paying job at a law firm in Washington. Mace and Roy meet after he discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm. As they investigate the death, they start uncovering surprising secrets from both the private and public world of the nation’s capital.

Soon, what began as a fairly routine homicide takes a terrifying and unexpected turn-into something complex, diabolical, and possibly lethal.