Book Review: Simple Genius

Simple Genius, by David Baldacci

Simple Genius is the third Baldacci book featuring the characters of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell.  In this one, Sean and Michelle investigate a death at a research facility located near a highly secure CIA location in Virginia.

The book begins with Michelle instigating a bar fight and getting tossed into a mental institution as a result. Michelle has some serious mental issues that are discussed at length, but unfortunately don't seem very relevant to the main plot. Much of the early part of the novel dealing with Michelle's stay in the mental facility play like a different story altogether, and could easily have been removed without much impact to the main story.

That main story begins with Sean taking a job in order to get money to pay for Michelle's hospital stay.  Sean is asked to determine if the death at the research facility is a murder or a suicide. This leads to more murders, attempted murders, kidnapping, and gunfights galore.

Michele's stay in the mental hospital not withstanding, the characters, plot and action are all interesting and absorbing until the end. In the end, though, Baldacci has one character behaving completely unbelievably and another character explain everything that was really going on. I found this very much a let down, and wish Baldacci could have shown more, and told less.

The books in the Sean King/Michelle Maxwell series are:

1. Split Second
2. Hour Game
3. Simple Genious
4. First Family