David Baldacci has always been one of my favorite authors. When I started The Camel Club I was disappointed at the lack of action and suspense in the beginning. My patience was rewarded, as I got deeper in to the book. It literally explodes with the characters making the reader keep going from chapter to chapter.

The Camel Club is a small group of men that camped outside the White House fence as they did their best to know what was going on in the world in the way of terrorism, while also checking on our own nation's actions and preparedness. Oliver Stone was the name given the leader of the "club."

Alex Ford is a member of the Secret Service. He has had duty in many areas that the agency watches and protects. He had been on the Presidential detail, the White House detail, and did much of the recognizance for areas the president was scheduled to visit. He has been in and out of grace with the service. Alex had had many conversations with Oliver Stone while Alex was on White House detail. They had many thoughts in common.

Kate Adams is a lawyer for the Department of Justice. Kate and Alex were the best of friends and more. Their jobs had much in common, but their discussions of those jobs were not talked about much so as not to sway each other. I will not get into all the characters in the book. I will only say that all the top government agencies, their leaders and the wish-they-were-leaders, are deeply involved in this book. Some working for the government are not what they pretend to be, but some are and some are not exposed throughout the book.

The Camel Club awoke my eyes to many things going on in our world, near and far, that could be a current news story we could very well read today or tomorrow. How David Baldacci wrote this book describing what is currently happening is beyond my imagination. He has been so very accurate in most areas, domestic and foreign affairs. He describes and makes a part of the story the problems and occurrences in law and justice, terrorism, politics, and killing for the sake of killing in the name of religion. He tells of the backstabbing in government, the United States, as well as abroad.

Much of the story involves the planning of the visit by President Brennan to his hometown, which was named after him. Brennan is located in Pennsylvania. The story tells much of how our Secret Service must do to plan for a presidential visit anywhere and how those plans can go wrong.

Don't pick your heroes out unless you will be ready to have them killed off. Naturally some survive but the story is not a run-of-the-mill story. I did not want to have to stop reading, close my eyes, and go to sleep!

REVIEWED BY CY HILTERMAN

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