Last Man Standing

Web London heads up the FBI's super-elite Hostage Rescue Team, he is a master at what he does, but on their latest assignment he is not able to predict, or save them from the bloodshed that is about to erupt. Having his men assemble in an alley, Web feels confident that they will bring down the drug dealer they have set out to destroy, but within seconds they are ambushed...everyone killed, leaving Web the LAST MAN STANDING.

Trying to cope with the blame that has been placed on him by grieving widows, Web must try to put the pieces of that fateful night together. What went wrong? How were they ambushed? And who was the young boy Web saved in that alley, and why was he there?

As these questions plague Web he seeks the help of psychiatrist Claire Daniels, and with her help he will be able to confront his own tainted past, as well as answer the question WHY WAS HE CHOSEN TO BE THE ONLY SURVIVOR?

As Web's search begins the young boy disappears, and anyone connected to that fateful night will be violently silenced, but Web is confident he knows where the killer will strike next, only this time he may not survive the attack.

`Last Man Standing' marks the return to thriller writing for David Baldacci, unfortunately the novel is peopled with too many characters, and the plot is far more complicated than it should be. Characters come dropping in every chapter, and the in depth descriptions of weapons, and technical FBI jargon become a distraction rather than an important part to the plot.

As with all Baldacci novels his writing is clean, crisp and easy to read, and he CAN spin a good tale, only this time he has too much going on. As the old saying goes "LESS IS MORE".

Nick Gonnella

David Baldacci has done it again, crafting yet another fast-paced, action-packed page-turner. The hero of his newest thriller is tough-but-loveable Web London, a member of the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team. When a drug raid turns into a brutal and deadly ambush, Web must try to unravel the mystery of why he is the only member of his close-knit team to survive. The search takes him into the darkest corners of his past, to the mean streets of Washington, D.C., and out to seemingly bucolic Virginia hunt country, where Web meets a variety of unforgettable characters from all walks of life, each of whom sheds a bit of light on the mystery he must solve.

Baldacci's seventh novel - like his others - is one you won't be able to put down. Baldacci packs the book with a brilliant plot and more than a few surprises that will knock your socks off, and includes a wealth of detail that highlights his meticulous research skills. I can only hope that we'll see Web and company again in a future Baldacci thriller.

Having taken a pass on Baldacci's departure from the action/thriller (Wish You Well), I welcomed a return to previous form with Last Man Standing. I believe the latest effort was worth the wait. Like his previous works such as Total Control and Absolute Power, Baldacci grabs you at the beginning of Last Man Standing and doesn't let go. The work is another page turner, packed with action, suspense, plot twists and surprises. In the story, the central character, Web London, is a member of FBI HRT (Hostage Rescue Team). Previously decorated for heroism on many occasions, London finds himself inexplicably frozen during a rescue assault that wipes out the entire HRT assault team and leaves him as the last man standing. As the story unfolds, London is left to deal with the aftermath of the situation and attempt to find an explanation. Baldacci effectively utilizes shifts between the present and the past, and provides a broad character set to complement London's character. All-in-all, Last Man Standing is a great read that marks a return to the genre in which Baldacci made his mark originally. Hopefully, he will continue.

Web London leads his elite FBI Hostage Rescue Team on the raid of the drug operation, but the enemy is waiting fully armed with remote electronic modern weaponry. Web's team is wiped out with he the lone survivor. Washington DC Field Office Chief Buck Winters, a key contributor to the Waco fiasco, blames Web for causing a media nightmare. Web's peers and the family members of the dead want answers on why Web lived.

Web knows he is the fall guy for this fiasco, but is determined not to just prove his innocence, but learn how his team was set up because this was a high tech precision operation that required a FBI leak to succeed. Web knows that one other witness besides the remote ambushers survived the assault. A ten-year-old boy named Kevin happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also needs to determine why the other side left him as the LAST MAN STANDING. This trail will lead to some personal revelations that will shake Web to the core of his being.

LAST MAN STANDING is an exciting psychological police thriller that contains two interrelated story lines in which separately either one is very powerful, but collectively one takes away from the other. Readers will empathize with Web who in seconds horrifically observed his team eradicated and feel for family survivors. David Baldacci furbishes an exciting thriller that never slows down even as the tale meanders between the twin plots. Still, readers will enjoy this fast-paced different type of psychological police procedural.

Harriet Klausner

Over the past few months, I've been trying like the dickens to broaden my reading horizons just a bit. My latest foray into the world of fiction was "Last Man Standing," the latest novel by David Baldacci. This is one of those books that I should have loved... but didn't . It falls into the genre of murder mystery/"techno"-thriller... much like Tom Clancy's books minus all of Clancy's geopolitical machinations and neo-conservative posturing. It's an interesting story told by an author with writing skills that can best be described as "nothing special."

"Last Man Standing" is the story of name of Web London, a thirteen-year veteran of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, who sees all six of his teammates shot to pieces during an assault on a drug trafficking ring. Web is the only man to escape death. For some reason, when the signal to move forward is given, he finds that he cannot walk, run, or even stand up. It's almost like he's paralyzed. He desperately wants to join in the fight, but he's physically in no condition to do so. He lies on the pavement, fully conscious of the slaughter going on around him, and unable to help in any way.

What follows is Web's attempts to find out why he was left the "last man standing." He's considered by many to be at best a coward and at worst a traitor. He's left feeling guilty and despondent. He decides to seek psychiatric help. The story takes readers on a journey from FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, through some of the seamiest parts of the nation's capital, and to the gorgeous horse farming country of northern Virginia. Readers are introduced to a plethora of characters, all part of a sinister plot against the FBI and Web London in particular. Read the book to find out what happens to our hero!

There are about as many good things to say as bad about "Last Man Standing" On the plus side, the story is well conceived, the premise believable, and the plot nicely developed. Baldacci does a very good job keeping his focus throughout the book's 548 pages. The story never wanders very far from where the author intends it to go. Even those seemingly small sub-plots (and there are a lot of them) tie in nicely at the end of the novel. The book is easy to read and understand.

So much for the "plus" side. "Last Man Standing" is plagued with some significant flaws. First and foremost, I found the characters - all of them - flat and uninspired. None of them engendered in me any passion one way or the other. I tend to like books where I, the reader, can like or dislike characters with a passion. How else would it be possible for me to root for the "good guys" or heap scorn upon the "bad guys?" Without strong feelings for the book's characters, what incentive is there to read on?

Another problem: while the central story line of "Last Man Standing" is well focused, it tends to be very predictable. So predictable, in fact, that I found myself correctly guessing the final outcome of the book by the time I'd reached page 250; I also was able to predict what type of situation would occur a few pages down the road. Baldacci certainly didn't make "Last Man Standing" a particularly suspenseful novel, that's for sure!

My final gripe concerning "Last Man Standing" is Baldacci's writing style. His prose is crisp, clear, and unambiguous, but also too simplistic for my tastes. I like literary prose best when it's edged with a bit sarcasm, humor, pessimism, or a myriad of other stylistic tinges that the most successful authors use. I think fictional prose should challenge the readers' intellect just a bit. Yet, Baldacci's writing is almost completely devoid of these characteristics. It's bland, almost like salt-free popcorn or chips. It provides no challenge to the intellect, no room to stop and think about characters or situations and draw conclusions, no challenging vocabulary or sentence structure to "tickle" the intellect, much as Caleb Carr did so successfully in his novel "The Alienist..."

MY VERDICT: With sincere apologies beforehand if I sound sexist here, but "Last Man Standing" is a "guy" book all the way. Every testosterone-tinged page of this novel is replete with big guns, muscle cars, and guys doing either impossibly heroic deeds or unspeakably villainous ones. In many ways it's a well written book, but it falls far short of being the kind of "rock `em, sock `em, seat-of-the-pants" thriller that I like best. In short, it's a nice, entertaining few days' read, but nothing that says "Read me! Read me NOW!!!"