The 6:20 Man: A Thriller
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Not the book — I hate getting to the end of a Baldacci novel. I wish he wrote Tolstoy-length stories because they would last longer! Some stories are better than others and I think this one may be his best yet.\n\nTravis Devine is totally fogged in his rationale for leaving a promising Army career and becoming a financial analyst for a company founded and run by a 21st century Wunderkind. But then a former girlfriend and coworker is discovered dead and Devine gets an untraceable email about the death. At this point, hold onto your hats, give up on a normal sleep pattern, and prepare to be totally immersed in Devine’s life. I hope there are more Travis Devine stories ahead. Longer stories. Much longer.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Enjoyed all the twists and turns and did not even come close to the ending. Baldacci has written another good one. Can’t wait for the next!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Bless. Baldacci’s heart. He has given us another hero if not heroes. That’s hard work creating new characters from whole cloth for us to root on. Thank you! And dear reader if you have ever read a Baldacci book hang on for a bumpy ride.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Page turner Hard to guess the ending This installment much improved over his last try Back in his fan club.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'The 6:20 Man introduces a reluctant hero, that can barely see the future through his own pain. Yet given an ultimatum he found redemption. As always a great story that was captivating and impossible to put down. Great character development and I look forward to the further adventures.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "David Baldacci's latest thriller, The 6:20 Man introduces a new protagonist. Devine starts out with a clouded background being a former West Pointer who mysteriously gives up what appears to be a promising military career. He obtains an MBA and then elects to become an intern on Wall Street (the equivalent of signing up for Army rangers in his 40's). A murder takes place in the building where he works and the victim is an old girlfriend. Then he's suborned by a shadowy DHS official who is investigating the firm he works for. At this point, everything goes sideways and Devine is never quite sure if he's the prime suspect while at the same time, also on the real killer's watch list.\n\nBaldacci has nailed another main character with a compelling backstory, a wide range of useful skillsets, along with the gumption to put himself into the thick of things. There's quite a bit of indirect and unflattering commentary on Wall Street. The high tech sector also has a prominent role. Good / bad guys and gals are mostly up in the air until nearly the very end. Lastly, it would seem that Devine has a new career path that promises plenty of future installments."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "David Baldacci has done it again! He has the pulse of our political world as it is right now! His intuitive voice reveals and exposes the scenario we are facing as a nation! We must all with due diligence fight against the corruption that is destroying our rights and our democracy! Thank you for keeping us all on our toes and aware of what can and is happening if we don't pay attention and do our part to preserve our precious America!"}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'As always, a David Baldacci book is good but I have some minor complaints. The biggest one is a glaring editing error, in the Kindle version anyway. Slight Spoiler alert. When Travis temporarily exchanges his phone for the bad guy’s, with help from the bad guy’s girlfriend, he uses it to gain entrance to a floor of the building to install a tiny camera. Then he checks the app he installed to see the camera view before he leaves, but he didn’t have his own phone at that moment, and the app wouldn’t have been on the bad guy’s phone. So, that was an oversight I think. My other sour note was the woman he ended up with - seemed like a shallow character. But that’s minor and just my opinion. If she appears in future Travis stories maybe she’ll grow on me.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'David Baldacci has you on the edge of your seat fiercely turning pages trying to solve Wall Street financial crime and a series of mysterious murders. He gives us an unlikely hero for solving high finance crime, an ex-Army Ranger, with an MBA. He introduces us to a constant ebb and flow of suspects and combines it with intriguing plot twist to create a spellbinding novel. Ends leaving you wanting more from the great cast of characters left standing in the final chapter. An obvious setup for the sequel!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-2 review-rating', 'review_body': 'David Baldacci’s “The 6:20 Man” is not a very good novel. Rambling, repetitive, not well-researched, non-specific, and all too ready to condemn Wall Street and the culture of American business, it features a main character of confusing actions and motivations whom I found to be neither compelling nor sympathetic.\n\nTravis Devine is a West Point graduate and a former U.S. Army captain and elite Ranger who has separated himself from the service for some mysterious reason. Now, having gotten his MBA, he works as a bottom-of-the-ladder intern/analyst for a fictional premier Wall Street firm. He hates his job and he hates Wall Street but he will keep at it because it is the penance he feels he must perform to atone for his mysterious sin.\n\nA co-worker—a woman he slept with once—is found hanged in one of the firm’s offices. On that same day, a retired general who now heads an “Office of Special Projects” inside the Department of Homeland Security, shanghais Devine and blackmails him into spying on the firm in order to discover the seriously “not right thing” that’s going on there. The general has no idea what that thing might be. He just has his suspicions. It’s up to Devine to figure it out. Otherwise, he’ll find himself in prison.\n\nIt’s tough to engage with a main character who has a tremendous chip on his shoulder. Devine thinks of himself as the “poster boy” for “everyone having dark, unspoken sides of which no one else, not even close friends and family, was aware.” His motives and actions are often contradictory and sometimes seemed, at least to me, foolish or weak. While, like Jack Reacher, he’s physically imposing and very able to take care of himself, he doesn’t seem to have much strength of character.\n\nThe story itself is hindered by a systemic lack of specificity, not to mention shallowness. For example, while we know that Devine’s employer, Cowl and Comely (C&C) is a Wall Street “white-glove” firm (the correct term for describing an elite firm is “white-shoe”), we’re never really clued in as to what it does. Is it a brokerage? A mergers and acquisitions shop? A private equity manager? Nor do we learn about the work of any of its employees. All we’re ever really allowed to know is that Devine sits at a desk with two computer screens and crunches numbers and writes reports which are flung back at him by cut-throat corporate co-workers while C&C’s head throws parties and drives a Bugatti between his palatial estate north of the city and his apartment on the top floor of the firm’s building.\n\nAs for the writing, it’s pretty mediocre. The prose is sometimes awkward. There are technical descriptions that are long and almost incomprehensible. The dialogue often meanders and relies heavily on cliché. And there’s no subtlety or real cleverness to the novel. Mr. Baldacci makes his points about American business and capitalism, not with a rapier, but with a battering ram. Bottom line: I found this to be not a pleasure to read and not entertaining. After 150 pages, I finally gave up.'}]