I went to hear David Baldacci speak the other night. He is the author of the novel, Absolute Power, about which more in a moment. he was on a book tour promoting his latest novel, Camel Club. he writes first class thrillers and this is right up there with the best of the class. It is set in the Washington, DC, area in the post-9/11 anti-terror era and that is all that I can say except that it has a surprise ending worthy of Alfred Hitchcock.
Regarding Absolute Pwer, Baldacci told about going to the world premiere of the Clint Eastwood film in Hollywood and feeling good for about 30 minutes for that was how long the film stuck to the book as he had written it. The rest was very much different. As an example, he told the story of going to the DC premiere and being confronted by what was an obvious Secret Service agent who angrily asked him why he had written a scane into the story about how a Secret Service agent gets killed by an injection into his neck. Baldacci said that he tried to tell this fellow that he had not written the story that way and it took the fellow's date telling him that Baldacci was correct and that she could vouch for him as she had read the book. Baldacci said that, if the agent wanted to discuss that scene with the man responsible, he pulled out Eastwood's telephone number. This tough and business-like agent got all embarassed and said that it wasn't necessary to disturb Mr. Eastwood.
Regarding Absolute Pwer, Baldacci told about going to the world premiere of the Clint Eastwood film in Hollywood and feeling good for about 30 minutes for that was how long the film stuck to the book as he had written it. The rest was very much different. As an example, he told the story of going to the DC premiere and being confronted by what was an obvious Secret Service agent who angrily asked him why he had written a scane into the story about how a Secret Service agent gets killed by an injection into his neck. Baldacci said that he tried to tell this fellow that he had not written the story that way and it took the fellow's date telling him that Baldacci was correct and that she could vouch for him as she had read the book. Baldacci said that, if the agent wanted to discuss that scene with the man responsible, he pulled out Eastwood's telephone number. This tough and business-like agent got all embarassed and said that it wasn't necessary to disturb Mr. Eastwood.
