Hour Game

商家名称	信用等级	购买信息	订购本书
		Hour Game
		Hour Game

基本信息·出版社：Vision
·页码：624 页
·出版日期：2005年09月
·ISBN：0446616494
·条形码：9780446616492
·装帧：简装
·外文书名：死神计时游戏

内容简介 在线阅读本书

He's copying famous serial killers and the game has just begun.

A woman is found murdered in the woods. It seems like a simple case but it soon escalates into a terrible nightmare. Someone is replicating the killing styles of the most infamous murderers of all time. No one knows this criminal's motives...or who will die next.

Two ex-Secret Service agents, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, have been hired to defend a man's innocence in a burglary involving an aristocratic, dysfunctional family. Then a series of secrets leads the partners right into the frantic hunt that is confounding even the FBI. Now King and Maxwell are playing the Hour Game, uncovering one horrifying revelation after another and putting their lives in danger. For the closer they get to the truth, the closer they get to the most shocking surprise of all.
作者简介 David Baldacci was born in Virginia, in 1960, where he currently resides. He received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University and a law degree from the University of Virginia. Mr. Baldacci practiced law for nine years in Washington, D.C., as both a trial and corporate attorney. David Baldacci has published 14 novels and a young adult series, Freddy and the French Fries. He has also published a novella for the Dutch entitled Office Hours , written for Holland's Year 2000 "Month of the Thriller." Baldacci authored a short story, The Mighty Johns, as part of a mystery anthology published in 2002. His works have been in numerous worldwide magazines, newspapers, journals, and publications. Baldacci has authored seven original screenplays. His books have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold in more than 80 countries. All of his books have been national and international bestsellers. Over 50 million copies of Mr. Baldacci's books are in print worldwide. Castle Rock entertainment made Absolute Power (Warner Books, 1996) into a major motion picture starring Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman. The novel Absolute Power won Britain's W.H. Smith's Thumping Good Read award for fiction in 1997, and was nominated for a literary award in Italy. Absolute Power was selected for People Magazine's "Page Turner of the Week." Absolute Power won the 1996 Gold Medal Award for Best Mystery/Thriller from the Southern Writers Guild.
编辑推荐 Amazon.com
Two disgraced former Secret Service officers team up to solve a series of copy-cat crimes in this exciting new thriller by a master of the game. Sean King was momentarily distracted when a presidential candidate he'd been guarding was assassinated a few feet from where he stood, and Michelle Maxwell left the Service under a similar cloud when she lost a "protectee" to an ingenious kidnapping scheme, events told in Baldacci's typical terse, fast-paced style in Split Second. Now partners in a private investigation firm in a small Virginia town, they're hired to investigate a burglary at the home of a wealthy local family. But even before the chief suspect in the break-in meets his death in a gruesome slaying reminiscent of a serial killer long since caught and punished, King and Maxwell get caught up in a string of other murders, each of which copies the techniques of another madman, from San Francisco's Zodiac Killer to Chicago's infamous John Wayne Gacy. While the two protagonists aren't especially complex or well-developed, the action never stops, and Baldacci's trademark pacing keeps the reader turning pages until the denouement, which unfortunately isn't quite as satisfying as the rest of the novel. --Jane Adams

Amazon.com Exclusive Content

Why Hour Game: An Exclusive Essay by David Baldacci

It's hard not to notice that the majority of fictional serial killers are cut from the same mold. When David Baldacci wrote Hour Game, he went out of his way to create a murderous original. Read this Amazon.com exclusive essay to learn how and why he did it. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


专业书评 From Publishers Weekly
Baldacci's last book, Split Second, was a relatively weak offering from this bestselling author, sunk by a cartoonish villain and absurd plot. But it did introduce two of Baldacci's (Absolute Power, etc.) most memorable characters, former Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, in business together as private investigators in smalltown Wrightsburg, Va. Baldacci is back in form, and King and Maxwell reappear in this utterly absorbing, complex mystery-thriller that spins in unexpected directions. The novel starts as a serial-killer thriller, for there's a murderer at work in Wrightsburg whose selection of victims appears random but whose modus operandi, differing from kill to kill, mimics the work of a notorious serial killer—the Zodiac killer, John Wayne Gacy, etc. The fifth victim is local resident and international tycoon Robert E. Lee Battle. King and Maxwell have already been tangling with the gothic horror show of a dysfunctional Southern family that is the Battles, as they've been hired to help prove the innocence of a Battle handyman accused of stealing from the family. Then that handyman is murdered, and the duo (along with a clueless local sheriff and an obnoxious FBI agent) must race to figure out if the same killer is behind all the murders and, if so, why. There are terrific action sequences sprinkled throughout, and plenty of suspense, and the King/Maxwell relationship, while not romantic, emits sparks. It's Baldacci's portrayal of smalltown Southern life, however, and his sharp characterizations of the Battles, from the bombastic Bobby and his regal widow to his weird extended family, that give the novel texture and depth: this is Baldacci's most accomplished tale since his nonthriller Wish You Well, and it rivals that novel in its social commentary. Despite fair clues, few if any readers will ID the villain (villains?) before they're revealed, and a snappy surprise ending will have Baldacci's many fans remembering why they love this author so much.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From AudioFile
Scott Brick brings his considerable expertise to his reading of Baldacci's latest crime novel featuring the team of Michelle Maxwell and Sean King, ex-Secret Service agents who first appeared in SPLIT SECOND. Their second outing takes place in Virginia and focuses on a dysfunctional Southern family, the Battles, and a series of murders made to look like famous killings of the past. Soft accents contrast with the brutality of the crimes, and though we are privy to the thoughts of the villain, we don't know who he/she is. The relationship between the partners is sensitively handled by Brick as is the portrayal of the Battles' vulnerable daughter. This production is a fine example of writer and reader working in tandem. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, the former Secret Service agents from Baldacci's previous outing, Split Second (2003), are on the trail of a serial killer in this new novel. King and Maxwell have just gone into business together as private investigators when Michelle discovers the body of a young woman in the woods. The body was posed with a wristwatch stopped at 1:00. Two high-school students are the next victims; both have watches on their wrists--the boy's reads 2:00, the girl's 3:01. King and Maxwell aid the police while working on their own case: a burglary in the house of Remmy Battle, a wealthy, tough southerner whose husband, Bobby, lies in a coma at the local hospital. The prime suspect is Junior Deaver, whose fingerprints are found at the crime scene. But Junior swears he's innocent. The victim list keeps growing: a successful high-powered lawyer and then Bobby Battle himself. Soon King begins to suspect that the serial killer might not be choosing his victims at random, and he believes one of the murders is the work of a different killer. The plot doesn't hold together perfectly, even starting out a bit slow, but it recovers to build to an exciting finish. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Publishers Weekly
"Utterly absorbing. Plenty of suspense and a surprise ending will have Baldacci’s fans remembering why they love (him) so much." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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