Eric Barstad

For a book with an average rating of almost four stars, I was certainly expecting a better novel than this. It's hard to believe this came from an author who has written and published other novels. In short, the dialogue is stilted and awkward, the characters are flat, the plot is uninspired, and the climax and main villain are laughable – i.e., it reads like the first, unpublished novel from a first-year creative writing student. It was definitely a disappointing introduction to Baldacci.

The book is entertaining but not particularly well-written. The characters were pretty shallow and I didn't care for the mix of first-person and third-person narration.

I quite enjoyed Dark of the Moon. There is some awkwardly written dialogue and the main character sports some pretty contrived character traits (his band t-shirt fetish and nightly writing, for example), but I mostly like Sandford's writing style and his overall pacing of the book. There are some excellent action scenes and the author leaves you guessing about who the killer really is. For fans of the genre, I'd say it's definitely worth the read.