Product Description

Oliver Stone and the Camel Club are back in their most dangerous adventure yet, a war on two fronts. Casino king Jerry Bagger from THE COLLECTORS is hunting Annabelle Conroy who conned him out of millions. Stone and his colleagues Reuben, Milton, and Caleb marshal all their resources to protect Annabelle. Yet all their skills may not be enough when a deadly new opponent rips off the veneer of Stone's own mysterious past. Bagger's menace pales next to newcomer Harry Finn's lethality. Seeming a normal family-man, Finn has already killed three men with more targets to come. When Finn also sets his bulls-eye on Stone, his reason why will be the greatest shock of all, making readers reconsider their beliefs in good and evil. As bodies and institutions topple, the story rockets toward a shattering finale that will leave the survivors of this explosive tale changed forever.

Product Details

• Published on: 2007-11-06
• Released on: 2007-11-06
• Formats: Audiobook, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio Cassette

From Publishers Weekly
Baldacci may not be a literary stylist, but he really knows how to spin a yarn, and with McLarty he gets a narrator who adds emotional depth to his characters without slowing down the breathless pace of his prose. McLarty uses his distinctive, almost avuncular delivery to excellent purpose in this action-packed thriller that finds the Camel Club members attacked by three tough customers seeking revenge. Washington power broker Carter Gray blames them for the loss of his White House job. Thuggish casino operator Jerry Bagger wants con woman extraordinaire Annabelle Conroy and his stolen $40 million. And an old Cold War wrong has placed former U.S. government assassin and club founder Oliver Stone in the path of world-class hit man Harry Finn. Middle-aged baritones offer no great challenge to McLarty's talent, yet his subtle shifts are admirable, from the thoughtful, slightly rough-edged Stone to the rougher-edged Bagger to Gray's sneeringly perfect locution. But his art becomes more apparent as he effectively captures the voices of Annabelle, Finn and a gallery of other characters, including a bitter elderly Russian woman and a world-weary Irish-American man, providing them all a dimension not always on the page. Simultaneous release with the Grand Central hardcover (Reviews, Aug. 22).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
STONE COLD is the third in Baldaccis well-received Camel Club series. Sadly, its also the third change in narrator. This can prove distracting when listening to all three, which is a necessity, at least with the second and third books in the series. This installment literally starts in the middle of a story arc that began in THE COLLECTORS with Oliver Stone and his expanding crew trying to reconcile his history and that of their new compatriot, Annabelle Conroy. With numerous characters cluttering the story landscape, Ron McLarty makes a game attempt to keep up. But he sometimes struggles with too many vocal variations. Still, McLarty has an engaging voice that is fun to hear. E.D.H. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About the Author
David Baldacci lives with his family in Virginia.

Customer Reviews

Suspenseful
Camel Club, book 3

Annabelle Conroy is again joining Oliver Stone and the Camel Club's group of mismatched characters in this suspenseful and unforgettable novel of revenge, conspiracy and murder.

The previous novel "The Collector" (a must read) laid the background for this novel, in it Annabelle Conroy pulled a con on Casino king Jerry Bagger and she is now hunted by him and needs all the resources the Camel Club can provide to protect her.

While protecting Annabelle, the group faces a new opponent, one by one, retired CIA agents involved in Stone's former unit are being picked off by a seemingly ruthless assassin. Who is behind this, certainly someone in power with a dark secret? Did Stone meet his match in this unstoppable killer? At this point, Baldacci honours us with a plethora of action as the two plots interweave at a very fast and entertaining pace leading to a very suspense filled unforeseen conclusion.

Stone Cold is heavy on character and plot development, the riveting descriptions leave the reader breathless and unbelievably satisfied.

Pulsates with Fast-Paced, Plot-Driven Power
If you liked either The Camel Club or The Collectors, don't miss this book!

If you haven't read The Camel Club or The Collectors, read those books before this one.

Stone Cold is an exciting and major step forward in the plot development of the Camel Club series as Oliver Stone and Annabelle Conroy deal with deadly challenges and old demons. In Stone Cold, the Camel Club moves from focusing on quirky to being operationally driven by the tools and tradecraft of assassins. The title appears to be an attempt to capture the psychology of the professional assassin, someone who is effective because he brings no emotion to terminating life. In keeping with Mr. Baldacci's ability to define and beautifully develop new characters, you'll be fascinated by the new character, Harry Finn, who tests for terrorist vulnerabilities as a profession, is a loving husband and father, and moonlights in assassinating assassins to settle an old score.

The novel has three main story lines: Finn's quest to eliminate old enemies, Annabelle Conroy's efforts to avoid being crushed by Jerry Bagger (the man she conned out of forty million dollars in The Collectors), and Oliver Stone's attempt to stay out of the public eye as someone chooses to expose his old connections to the CIA. I found this worked well for making the story fast-paced and continually surprising because the stories interweave.

But ultimately the appeal of this book is that it brings a lot of resolution to past and current conflicts in the series.

The only thing I didn't like about the book was that it lacked most of the usual quirkiness of the characters and past plots. Instead, this book is more of a standard spy versus spy, crook versus crook, and government against the bad guys type of story. But it's quite good for what it is. I hope the quirkiness doesn't disappear after this story.

After you read this story, think about where you have followed orders . . . orders that you should have questioned. What orders should you be questioning now?

The best yet in the Camel Club series!

The eclectic crew of the Camel Club are back in action and better than ever! First, if you have not read the Camel Club or the collectors I highly recommend you do before starting this book. Especially read the Collectors as this is a continuation of a story line from that book. The Stone and the boys' skills are tested as they try to protect Annabella Conroy from the crazy casino owner Jerry Bagger, who Annabella has conned Millions from (see The Collectors). But Stone's attention is soon diverted when old deeds and causes come back to haunt him. Don't want to ruin the surprises but a new deadly Villain is waiting in the wings, and is killing Triple Six members one at a time, is Stone next on the list. This is a gripping, fully loaded thriller, with surprising twists that delivers on all cylinders!