Book Review: The Fix (Amos Decker – Memory Man #3) by David Baldacci

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Richard H. McBee Jr.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Beginning of this book is right up to snuff with the other “Memory Man” series and the story line runs smoothly through the first 275 or so pages. Amos Decker is in his fine fettle and the scenes he is able to draw upon with his perfect memory to solve a crime. Author Baldacci builds us a gradual picture through the eyes of Amos Decker of what really happened, that day outside the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington D.C., when Walter Dabney approached Anne Berkshire from behind, shot her in the back of the head, and then proceeded to blow himself away in front of Decker and the FBI security officer. As with a lot of sequeals, there comes a time when the author has a relatively coherent novel which just calls for a hundred page conclusion. In this particular book, author Baldacci carried that thread just about two hundred pages too far. In the process, the key threads of excitement and anticipation grow thin in a maze of rehashes that replay over and over and over … that initial moment of the stalk and kill. Too many chickens spoil the stew and by the last chapter the book has fallen into our face as we lapse into a deep snore of ennui. Splitting the book into two, and working to spice up the second half into a work of its own would have been a better solution. I await the Amos Decker # 4 in hopes that the mojo of # 1 and # 2 comes back.

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