Rating: 
Summary: Good Book! Interesting..
Review: This is my 3rd Baldacci book. The book is good. Kept me interesting throughout the story line. Didn't figure it out til the end. However... my fav Baldacci book so far is THE WINNER. Now THATS an EXCELLENT BOOK!! Highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Textbook writing.
Review: I've read textbooks that were more entertaining. Reading a novel is supposed to be fun. The long boring paragraphs that take up half a page would have put me to sleep if I had not given up after page 12. Am returning it to Mystery Guild in exchange for one by McBain. Now, there's my kind of writer. Last Man was my first for this writer--and my last.
Rating: 
Summary: Dripping with testosterone!
Review: This is the second Baldacci I've read. His first, Absolute Power, was an OK thriller with an intriguing plot and fairly interesting characters. This one was just too MACHO for me. We need guys like the HRT men depicted here, but I just can't stand so much posturing and shoot-em-up gunfire. The plot was decent, even cleverly convoluted -- but way beyond belief. I'll stick with Lehane, Sandford, Crais, DeMille, Burke and the like. I think they are superior writers.
Rating:
Summary: A tickle in the back of the brain
Review: When a mysterious hesitation causes a single member of an elite Hostage Rescue Team to be the survivor of an ambush, you have the jumping-off point for more intrigue, interagency deception, and downright criminal acts than you can shake a stick at. Once again, David Baldacci delivers a fast-paced, hard-hitting book that's engaging, interesting, and gives you that little "tickle" in the back of your brain that won't let you put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Always Good with Baldacci
Review: I found this book to be right along the Baldacci line. I expected a good read and got it. Alot of things going on in Web's world, enough to keep you occupied as the story plays out. As always, there are great characters to add to the main one. The insight and knowledge that Baldacci uses add more than we knew prior to picking up the book. I recommend it to fans of Mr. Baldacci and to those who like an action packed book.
Rating: 
Summary: Baldacci wins again
Review: I oculdn't put it down. It was a real page turner. Baldacci has done it again. I would also recommend Grisham's The Chamber if you're interested in prison drama and especially Walls by D. C. Wilson and Nancy R. Wilson if you're interested in prison hostage dramas.
Rating:
Summary: Traitor? Coward? Or fall guy? You decide.
Review: Over the past few months, I've been trying like the dickens to broaden my reading horizons just a bit. My latest foray into the world of fiction was "Last Man Standing," the latest novel by David Baldacci. This is one of those books that I should have loved... but didn't . It falls into the genre of murder mystery/"techno"-thriller... much like Tom Clancy's books minus all of Clancy's geopolitical machinations and neo-conservative posturing. It's an interesting story told by an author with writing skills that can best be described as "nothing special.""Last Man Standing" is the story of name of Web London, a thirteen-year veteran of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, who sees all six of his teammates shot to pieces during an assault on a drug trafficking ring. Web is the only man to escape death. For some reason, when the signal to move forward is given, he finds that he cannot walk, run, or even stand up. It's almost like he's paralyzed. He desperately wants to join in the fight, but he's physically in no condition to do so. He lies on the pavement, fully conscious of the slaughter going on around him, and unable to help in any way. What follows is Web's attempts to find out why he was left the "last man standing." He's considered by many to be at best a coward and at worst a traitor. He's left feeling guilty and despondent. He decides to seek psychiatric help. The story takes readers on a journey from FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, through some of the seamiest parts of the nation's capital, and to the gorgeous horse farming country of northern Virginia. Readers are introduced to a plethora of characters, all part of a sinister plot against the FBI and Web London in particular. Read the book to find out what happens to our hero! There are about as many good things to say as bad about "Last Man Standing" On the plus side, the story is well conceived, the premise believable, and the plot nicely developed. Baldacci does a very good job keeping his focus throughout the book's 548 pages. The story never wanders very far from where the author intends it to go. Even those seemingly small sub-plots (and there are a lot of them) tie in nicely at the end of the novel. The book is easy to read and understand. So much for the "plus" side. "Last Man Standing" is plagued with some significant flaws. First and foremost, I found the characters - all of them - flat and uninspired. None of them engendered in me any passion one way or the other. I tend to like books where I, the reader, can like or dislike characters with a passion. How else would it be possible for me to root for the "good guys" or heap scorn upon the "bad guys?" Without strong feelings for the book's characters, what incentive is there to read on? Another problem: while the central story line of "Last Man Standing" is well focused, it tends to be very predictable. So predictable, in fact, that I found myself correctly guessing the final outcome of the book by the time I'd reached page 250; I also was able to predict what type of situation would occur a few pages down the road. Baldacci certainly didn't make "Last Man Standing" a particularly suspenseful novel, that's for sure! My final gripe concerning "Last Man Standing" is Baldacci's writing style. His prose is crisp, clear, and unambiguous, but also too simplistic for my tastes. I like literary prose best when it's edged with a bit sarcasm, humor, pessimism, or a myriad of other stylistic tinges that the most successful authors use. I think fictional prose should challenge the readers' intellect just a bit. Yet, Baldacci's writing is almost completely devoid of these characteristics. It's bland, almost like salt-free popcorn or chips. It provides no challenge to the intellect, no room to stop and think about characters or situations and draw conclusions, no challenging vocabulary or sentence structure to "tickle" the intellect, much as Caleb Carr did so successfully in his novel "The Alienist..." MY VERDICT: With sincere apologies beforehand if I sound sexist here, but "Last Man Standing" is a "guy" book all the way. Every testosterone-tinged page of this novel is replete with big guns, muscle cars, and guys doing either impossibly heroic deeds or unspeakably villainous ones. In many ways it's a well written book, but it falls far short of being the kind of "rock 'em, sock 'em, seat-of-the-pants" thriller that I like best. In short, it's a nice, entertaining few days' read, but nothing that says "Read me! Read me NOW!!!"
Rating: 
Summary: Oh so very average
Review: I read Absolute Power and was looking for his next novel. Last Man Standing is very mediocre. Huge plot holes. One example, page 488 (out of 548), Kevin (a nine year old) picks a locked door with parts from a pen - right, I believe that ~ not!...P>It's not a bad book, just not a very good book. Easy to read, just hard to visualize real people doing some of the things in it...
Rating:
Summary: Last Man Standing -- UGH!
Review: Baldacci at his absolute worst. This is the kind of book that is hard to get into, boring in the middle and toward the end makes you wonder why you didn`t watch reruns of "The Gong Show" rather than wasting you time!!
Rating:
Summary: A Good Book Turned Mediocre
Review: I must admit that I for the most part enjoyed reading this book while recently on vacation. It is a long book with well developed characters that puts together an interesting and suspense filled mystery plot. Then, as the mysteries and riddles of the story begin to be resolved ... you become dissatisfied by how weak the resolution to the story ends up being. The story becomes weaker and weaker, and more and more unbelievable with every page beyond the midway point. By the end - you are sorely disapointed. SPOLIER ALERT - It would seem like David Baldacci just got bored of writing, since there is no coherent ending to the story. The book just ... finished, in what would appear to be the midway point to a longer story. Not recommended.
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