Joyfully Retired

Jay and I listened to this audiobook on a recent road trip. It was the perfect audiobook for that purpose. First, let me tell you what the book is about.

From the back cover: It began with what seemed like an ordinary children’s birthday party. Friends and family gathered to celebrate. There were balloons and cake, games and gifts.

This party, however, was far from ordinary. It was held at Camp David, the presidential retreat. And it ended with a daring kidnapping . . . which immediately turned into a national security nightmare.
Sean King and Michelle Maxwell were not looking to become involved. As former Secret Service agents turned private investigators, they had no reason to be. The FBI doesn’t want them interfering. But years ago, Sean King saved the First Lady’s husband, then a senator, from political disaster. Now, Sean is the one person the First Lady trusts, and she presses Sean and Michelle into the desperate search to rescue the abducted child.
With Michelle still battling her own demons, and forces aligned on all sides against her and Sean, the two are pushed to the absolute limit. In the race to save an innocent victim, the line between friend and foe will become impossible to define . . . or defend.

Our opinion: This latest book (2009) is one of David Baldacci’s Sean King and Michelle Maxwell books. This is the first book we’ve read in this series. These two detectives work well together and support each other nicely without the silly male/female thing found in other books. At first I was  put off by Michelle’s smart mouth but then I began to appreciate how she dug in and tenaciously solved parts of the mystery. In this book she suffers a personal tragedy that shows another side of Michelle, a vulnerable side. I liked Sean all the way. He was that strong, ethical, personable kind of character who shows he is smart enough to go around roadblocks without breaking the law. He needed that in this mostly Washington, D.C. story. The plot was believable as were most of the characters. At one point I actually liked the bad guy and felt sorry for him.

All the characterizations were helped enormously by the reader, Ron McLarty. He gave each character his or her own voice and various accents were also used. As I learned, he has been the reader for several of David Baldacci’s other books. I’m determined to find them and any other books Ron McLarty has read. He’s also written a couple of his own books, been on Broadway and various TV shows.

This was an excellent audiobook and perfect for a road trip. It wasn’t distracting so as to bother my husband’s driving but yet compelling enough to entertain us through hours of boring interstate traffic. There was one point where we arrived at our destination for that day but got back in our vehicle so we could finish up that section of the book. That’s the equivalent of reading through the crucial chapter in a paper book. I definitely recommend this one for long road trips or, for that matter, lots of long walks with your ipod.