The setting is Washington, DC. US Attorney Jamie Meldon is approached and later killed by FBI agents who report to the Director of National Intelligence. Diane Tolliver, a lawyer who brokers large international financial arrangements, is found murdered by one of her associates, Roy Kingman, a former basketball star at the University of Virginia. These seem like separate incidents but as the story unfolds, we learn that the victims knew each other.

Mason (Mace) Perry is released after two years in prison for a crime she may not have willfully committed. Mace was a "true blue" policewoman who, under the influence of drugs (allegedly administered by gang members), participated in an armed robbery. Mace hopes that by solving this murder on her own she will be reinstated to the DC police force where her sister, Beth, is the chief of police.

Mace hooks up with Kingman who receives both a cryptic email and a book containing a mailbox key from Tolliver. Naturally, their search results in threats on their lives and, of course, there is the prototypical innocent suspect, in this case a homeless veteran, who is initially accused of the crime.

Could True Blue have been written by the same author as Absolute Power which had one of the very best starts to any novel I have ever read? Certainly not with the poor character development and stereotypes like politically motivated Mona Danforth who seems to exist only to illustrate the political beast that she is, and above the law Jarvis Burns. And not with its unsympathetic main character and hard-to-buy premise that a police chief would invite her disgraced sister to a crime scene within hours of her release from prison and that cracking a case will miraculously give that recently released from prison ex-cop her job back.

My true hope is that David Baldacci needs to return to his true calling - writing tightly plotted, well constructed thrillers.

--Jerry Solot