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| Hour Game | 
 enlarge | Author: David Baldacci
Publisher: Pan Books
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £6.98 (100%)
New (32) from £0.87
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 19594
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.4 x 2
ISBN: 033041173X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780330411738
ASIN: 033041173X
Publication Date: June 3, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Just ran out of ideas and steam September 26, 2008
A comment was made recently on a writers' forum I visit regularly that a crime book had been criticised because, every time the author ran out of ideas, they slammed in more violence. This is how this book reads. Murder after murder, linked, not linked, sadistic, ritualistic and completely and totally unconvincing. I have read far, far better from David Baldacci, but have to say that his later books are 'going through the motions' with incredible storylines, feeble stereotyped police officers who regularly bellow, yell and generally get it wrong while King and Maxwell storm through to get the bad guy without help, and a good deal of their hindrance. David Baldacci is capable of SO much more than that! Where is his editor not to say, 'come, you can do better, drop this, cut that, write this in instead' and give the reader a real thriller book to get into. I won't be buying any more of his. I feel he is written out, no ideas and no steam. I will look for new upcoming people with fire in their minds and sharp entertaining writing to tell the story.
 A gruesome and entertaining follow up October 18, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The second book in the series featuring ex-Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell certainly doesn't hold back on the vicious murder scale - and it is an entertaining read to boot.
The killer's identity becomes fairly obvious after about three-quarters of the book, but up until then, Baldacci does a good job of shrouding him in secrecy and making him every bit as unnerving and brutal as you expect from a good thriller.
It's a fairly standard "small town shaken by killing spree" backdrop, but the plot zips along at a good pace and Baldacci does a nice job of tying all the various strands together as the story nears its end.
King and Maxwell again prove likeable characters, as they track down the murderer killing people in similar fashion to some of the world's most famous serial killers, and you could pick this book up without having read their first outing, in Split Second.
It's a good choice for any Baldacci fan, or just for someone who enjoys crime thrillers. It's also not a bad introduction into what Baldacci can offer, for first-time readers of his.
 The Second Book in the Sean King and Michelle Maxwell Series August 17, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
David Baldacci attended law school at the University of Virginia, and went on to work as a trial lawyer, and later as a corporate lawyer, in Washington, D.C. He is now a full-time writer whose best selling novels include Absolute Power, Total Control, The Winner, The Simple Truth and Saving Faith. He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.
This is a book about a deranged serial killer (is there any other kind?). The killer taunts the police and their resources by leaving watches on the victims. The watches are set to the hour corresponding to the victims position on his hit list. Even more barbaric the killer strives to reconstruct and replicate notorious murders from the past, trying to improve upon them by meticulous attention to detail.
Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are already investigating another crime, but when they are assigned to help in the serial killer case, they soon begin to realise that the two cases may well be connected. To muddy the waters even further another killer surfaces and this one is imitating the murders carried out by the first . . .
 So-so April 16, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is the tale of a serial killer who goes about his work with thought and style but when he's not quite as free to murder who, where and when he originally planned to, the sense of intrigue fades away and it takes much of the interest in the story with it. It's a rather stereotypical scenario involving an extremely wealthy family full of jealousies, tragedies and divided loyalties and enough potential suspects in the shapes of kingpins and widows, sons and daughters, in-laws and various hangers-on to satisfy those who enjoy working out who did it before the inevitable revelation. It's even possible that the butler did it, if you want a taste of the corniness, but for me the only thing I wanted to happen was to reach the end of the story, all 100+ chapters of it and probably 50 too many.
The goodies, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, are a pair of former government agents now working together as male/female partners in a small P.I. firm in a small Virginia town. They have appeared together previously in SPLIT SECOND, but one of the biggest flaws in the novel reviewed here is that they make a pretty uninteresting couple, certainly neither of them possesses the charisma or personality to carry a series and probably not even a stand-alone.
It's all a bit ho-hum in the end, a by-the-numbers murder mystery which might have been compelling 20 years ago but with so much crime fiction available today it doesn't really stack up against the best of the competition. It's OK but it's nothing special and doesn't break any new ground or old barriers. Something to pass the time on a long-haul flight perhaps, but not a contemporary crime classic by any stretch of the imagination - particularly if the genre of crime fiction is your favourite and you read a lot of it regularly.
 Waste of time April 4, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought Hour Game & Split Second because I'd read Camel Club, which was pretty cute. But Hour Game was long, tedious, boring, and--worst of all--filled with inaccuracies and general sloppiness. VICAP doesn't do profiles; Mercury doesn't make 500 horsepower outboards, etc, etc. Baldacci credits a researcher, but neither she nor he did even a halfway good job. It's like he just made up the whole spiel (including plot & dialog) out of his own head without referencing reality. I have no earthly idea how he's had ten novels published...unless he's got a really "in" with a publisher. The whole thing was dishonest and a complete waste of time.
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