Baldacci Introduces Intriguing New Hero in Zero Day
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Title: Zero Day
Author: David Baldacci
Pages: 448
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
In Zero Day, best-selling author David Baldacci introduces a brand new hero. A combat veteran, John Puller is also the best military investigator in the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigative Division. He’s intelligent, resourceful, and unflappable, but carries some emotional baggage because he’s saddled with an Army (living) legend for a father, and a brother who is serving a life sentence in a Federal prison for treason. Intriguing!
Puller is sent on a solo assignment to rural West Virginia – miles away from any military base – to investigate a series of murders. He’s called in because a Colonel about to retire from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is found brutally murdered. His wife and two children have also been similarly brutally slain. Puller has to make nice with local homicide detective, Samantha Cole, on the case. They realize that there is more than just random violence at play when one of the deputies assigned to guard the crime scene is found hanged, and a young couple who live near the dead family are also found dead shortly afterward. Puller and Cole work together to try and find out the motive behind the killings. (Hint: It has something to do with the coal-mining industry, which is prevalent in that part of West Virginia, and defense industry.)
A number of reviewers have said that Puller is a rip-off of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. As a fan of the Reacher novels, I admit that there appear to be some similarities between the two characters. But Baldacci is no spring chicken in the industry, and if there are similarities, I can only conclude that Baldacci wrote Puller this way deliberately, in spite of the potential overlap. Any similarities to Reacher in no way detract from the enjoyment that I derived from reading this well-written novel. My own view is that Puller is no Reacher clone, and that there are unique characteristics that will surely become more apparent in future books.
Zero Day is a pleasure to read. It is written with all the great hallmarks of a Baldacci novel. The characters are well-developed, and contain a nice depth. The prose is constructed with great skill and there is excellent dialogue. The plot has twists and turns, but remains believable. Baldacci gives enough backstory and information to keep things moving along, without getting everyone too tied up in the details. I look forward to many more books in the Puller series.
