THIS new thriller from David Baldacci is set in 1949 with a new protagonist, Aloysius Archer.
Freed after doing time for a crime he didn’t commit, Archer soon finds himself engulfed in a series of events that can send him back to prison again.
In Poca City, he checks in to the Derby hotel where most of the ex-convicts stay when they are out.
The former war veteran has to comply with a long list of dos and don’ts presented to him by his parole officer, Ernestine Crabtree.
According to the parole papers, he must get a job. Instead, Archer decides to check out The Cat’s Meow, a little dive bar where he meets well-known banker Hank Pittleman.
The banker tells Archer that a local named Lucas Tuttle owes him $5,000, and had promised to put his dark-green 1947 Cadillac Series 62 sedan up as collateral for the loan.
Pittleman then offers Archer $100 to reclaim the car. Archer accepts the offer.
But when he finds Tuttle, the man reveals that Pittleman has taken his daughter Jackie as his ‘mistress’. And unless Jackie returns home, he won’t repay the debt.
When a dead body turns up, Archer realises that he’s caught up in something far more sinister.
But when he is framed for the murder, he decides to work with Detective Lieutenant Irving Shaw who is investigating this murder.
One Good Deed reads like a crime thriller but with a slightly darker tone.
Baldacci manages to capture the moods in the 1940s to add realism to the story.
The characters are well developed, especially Archer, as well as Shaw.
Some of the other characters are revealed with their own dark secrets, making it hard for the reader to know who’s really the evil one.
Fast-paced and packed with plenty of suspense and misdirection, One Good Deed turns out to be another exciting read from this bestselling American author of such thrillers as True Blue, The Innocent and Split Second.
