The title, "The Winner," has a double significance. It obviously refers to the lottery, but what else?

A single mother is offered a guarantee to win the lottery and after initial hesitation, accepts. Circumstances force her to leave the country but her eventual return is not welcomed by everyone. This is a plot-driven suspense story. Does it live up to its reputation as a "thriller"? In other words, does the story keep you on the edge of your seat? How so?The group eventually witnesses a murder and decide to go after the party themselves rather than risk not being believed. Joining with Veteran Secret Service Agent Alex Ford, the group gets caught up in a complicated game of intrigue and conspiracy that goes all the way to the top. The books go deeper into the real identity of Oliver Stone and his history as a legendary assassin. In the follow up book The Collectors, the Camel Club once again must go to work when the Speaker of the House is assassinated. The story, ultimately, is about the possibility of recreating one's identify, changing one's life, and leaving behind a less-than-happy past. For many, it might be wish fulfillment. Is it for you? If you could make yourself over again, what kind of life would you create? Who would you be, what would you do, where would you live? And what would you be getting away from?

In addition, the villian was a master of disguise. OK fine. But in this case, it was over the top. Nobody is going to be so good at disguise that they can basically mimic individual people to the extent that they will fool people who are closest to them. It begins with Luther Whitney breaking into a home, something he does often and for a living. Baldacci explains that Whitney doesn’t carry a weapon, but rather prefers to rely on his skills to do the job. One night Whitney is witness to an unexpected tryst in the bedroom, trapped in the closet and unable to leave without revealing himself and possibly getting injured. As the lovemaking between the man and woman turns violent, Whitney unintentionally is the sole witness to murder. To let readers know where I'm coming from, my preferred genre is romance novels. The fact that I liked this should mean something since it is off genre for me. Throughout the book there was the underlying frustration of how can anyone ever stop this bad guy, but he gets it eventually. The story was excellent mechanically with good showing not telling. I would have liked more emotional draw to the characters. Not necessary, but I also would have liked more witty or thought provoking dialogue. I liked the LuAnn character a lot. She was physically very strong. Her strength of mind and body actually scared some men.While his stories hinge on the complex machinations behind the presidency, the FBI, the Supreme Court and other spheres of influence, Baldacci (a former Washington, D.C.-based attorney) finds his way into a mystery through the eyes of the innocents. Semi-innocents, at least: small players who often don't realize they're players at all end up hunting down answers, and their hunt becomes the reader's. The rice-paper plot limps along towards a predictable, melodramatic, one-woman-army ending after which they all live happily ever after. A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.

And I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that Baldacci also wanted to make a political statement about lotteries being an irresponsible regressive form of taxation that prey upon the weak represented in their totality by LuAnn and her daughter. I think Baldacci was talking about the very story that he had his reporter Donovan attempting to chase down. You know ... he could be right! Fast forward ten years and our damsel-in-distress is a force of nature - wielding a gun whenever possible and chopping wood faster than her groundskeeper as well as being indescribably beautiful. In fact, her youthful beauty is so unbelievable that she is often mistaken to be her 10 year old daughter's sister. Of course, there are troubles to deal with [tax-evasion has never been so thrilling] and a man who may or may not be an FBI agent steps in to rescue her. This lottery scam even involves the president! Mercy! HOWEVER, Annie from Stephen King's Misery would have slit his throat on this one because the believability of the premise just wasn't there. The series is about two Secret Service agents who have fallen from grace after the political candidate King is guarding gets assassinated and the person Maxine Maxwell is guarding gets kidnapped. Split Second is the first book in the series published in 2003. In it, Maxwell is drawn to King’s case which is a good thing since a string of murders have him under suspicion. The action and pressure heat up as they get deeper into a series of coincidence that may have more to do with the past than the present. But when she gets home to the trailer she shares with the no-good father of her child, she walks into the middle of a drug deal gone wrong. In self-defense she ends up killing a man who has just fatally stabbed her boyfriend. At least sheIn fact, when handing my money to the cashier at the sale, the lady said that this was her favorite David Baldacci book. She had good taste. Until the last number: "Ever so slowly, even as LuAnn's heart threatened to cease beating, the two balls, as though carefully choreographed, again swapped places with each other in the swirling spray of hot air, even ricocheting Baldacci cuts everyone's grass—Grisham's, Ludlum's, even Patricia Cornwell's—and more than gets away with it. Baldacci writes under his own name except when published in Italy, where he uses a pseudonym because it is the homeland of his ancestors.