Madness and Mayhem

First Family
by David Baldacci
Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (April 21, 2009)
Rated 4 stars of 5 possible

A child's birthday party ends in a kidnapping. Murder, mayhem, and secrets are soon to be revealed. The First Family of the USA is clearly involved, but just how deep does their involvement go?  A former Secret Service agent turned PI is chasing her own demons, but puts her own concerns aside to follow up on the kidnapping along with her partner, another former Secret Service agent...

David Baldacci's thriller is gripping, non-stop action, slightly reminiscent of some of the early John Grisham novels but also clearly a different style of writing. Fast paced and very ingriguing, I found First Family very hard to put down. While this is the fourth book featuring the two former Secret Service agents, First Family stands on its own, it is quite readable as a stand-alone book.

Be warned, however, if you are looking for a book that's been carefully edited and free of typographical and grammatical errors, this isn't it. Without even looking for such errors, I found about five of them throughout the novel.  Unlike other reviewers, I didn't get bored reading First Family, nor do I believe it precisely fits into the old formulaic kids' detective story format. And oh yes, those annoying typos? The story was so gripping I didn't have time to be annoyed at the editing - or lack thereof - but I do think such sloppy editing reflects badly on the publisher and on the author...