Audiobook Review: The Camel Club by David Baldacci

I recently listened to The Camel Club by David Baldacci.  It was narrated by Jonathan Davis.

The story introduces us to a group of old friends living in DC, who call themselves the "Camel Club" and who meet to discuss their conspiracy theories.  The group witnesses a crime and start investigating it on their own for the main purpose of self-preservation.  They eventually team up with a Secret Service Agent and his new girlfriend, an attorney for the Justive Dept.  At the same time, there are about a hundred different intricate plots and characters woven together and heading towards a true conspiracy that comes not from terrorist factions, but from inside the very Intelligence agencies that are there to protect the US.  We see inside a variety of govenrmental agencies fromt eh President's office to the Intellgence community.

The Camel Club has several stories going on that all tie together at the end.  The book is a venue for David Baldacci to put his political views out there, much like all writers do, but he does it in a way that is entertaining and with his usual well-developed characters doing the telling for him.  I've seen a lot of reviewers of this book not happy with Baldacci's political views or the way this story was told, but I highly enjoyed the story.  Credibility?  It's hard to say.  I'm not familiar with the DC area; I don't personally know protocol for handling the circumstances that arise, whether with the police, the secret service, the terrorists, or the intelligence community.  I think most novels can be a little on the far fetched side, but we read them for entertainment.  If I wanted true-life, I'd read the newspaper, right?

I found the intertwining plots interesting.  The characters and their relationships with each other were well done - if you don't know who the characters are, it's hard to enjoy a story.  I don't like the back and forth from this storyline then that storyline so much, but these days it seems like every book is written that way.  I guess the more storylines and intricate details that there are, the more jumping around you'll have.  This was a story that I couldn't wait to get back to.  I also enjoyed the lessons on politics interesting.  There was definitely the teaching about some middle eastern cultures that went on in this story and I'm always open minded and interested in hearing about others' cultures.  I did not find Baldacci's writing "anti-American" as some reviewers have stated, rather I was interested in reading this point of view.  This book is about the politics of today.  The only complaint I had is that our main"bad guy" never really told us the "WHY AND WHAT WAS THE EXPECTED OUTCOME" of the terorist plot that he designed and it left us wondering some. If you enjoy political thrillers and if you enjoy David Baldacci, you will like The Camel Club.  The narration was also very well done.  I recommend this audio book.