Redemption is the fifth book in the “Memory Man” series by #DavidBaldacci. It features Amos Decker, a former homicide detective from a small Ohio city who now works as a consultant to the FBI. For the uninitiated, Amos Becker has a double backstory that makes him a great detective and a, to be honest, pretty strange character to read about. He was once a great football player who got hit in the head so hard that he developed an extremely rare condition where he has perfect recall of everything he sees and hears. And, tragically, his whole family was murdered years earlier by a homicidal lunatic Decker was chasing in an investigation.
Baldacci is one of the most successful authors in the world. His books are always exquisitely constructed. The mysteries are compelling. The action and suspense are effective. It’s all there. Amos Decker is just a drag, in my view. Wracked with guilt, unable to forget even the tiniest of life’s details, and missing some social skills due to his brain injury, Decker is a pretty miserable human being. If you like spending time with someone who is dwelling on his tragic life all the time and unable to know the right thing to say to his fellow human beings, this book is for you. Otherwise, Baldacci’s great writing talent aside, you may want to skip this.
Anyway, the story: The book opens with Decker communing with the ghosts of his wife and daughter at the cemetery in Burlington, Ohio, the dying industrial town where he grew up and served as a cop. His FBI partner, Alex Jamison, is with him, standing at a respectful distance as Decker ponders what could have been.
A very sick and suspicious looking man approaches. It’s Meryl Hawkins, a man Decker sent away for life in prison for a quadruple homicide thirteen years earlier. Hawkins is dying of cancer, out on compassionate release. He wants Decker to know that he’s innocent of the crime. He only has a few weeks to live, and he wants his name cleared.
For Decker, there is no doubt that Hawkins is guilty, so the whole visit at first seems like a nuisance perpetrated by a dying man who, like all convicted killers, says he didn’t do it. Still, Decker decides to revisit the case, so he goes to see his old partner, Mary Lancaster, who is still a detective in Burlington. They walk through the crime scene, which is now an abandoned house.
Thirteen years earlier, a father and two children, along with a friend, were violently murdered. Hawkins’ DNA was found under the fingernails of a girl who was strangled. Hawkins’ fingerprint was on a light switch. What else did they need? The man had no alibi. It was a slam dunk case. Nothing felt the slightest bit off about it at the time.
However, this was Decker’s first homicide, and with the benefit of additional experience, he now sees that he missed a few details that might have slowed him down in focusing exclusively on Hawkins. Could he really be innocent? He still thinks the man is guilty, but he’s open to giving it another look. He’s bothered by the fact that he might have sent an innocent man to prison.
Before Decker and Lancaster can get any further, though, Hawkins is found shot to death. So… something is going on here.
Someone doesn’t want Hawkins to talk. Who? Why? Decker is going to get those questions answered, and we’ve got a big old Memory Man book to do the job.
Ignoring irritable demands from his FBI bosses to return to DC and brushing off irritable demands from the local police force not to stick his nose into an investigation that isn’t his, Decker gets under way. He starts to question some of the original witnesses and relatives of the victims. And soon, they start turning up dead, or are under threat. Decker survives several attempts on his life. Someone REALLY doesn’t want this matter to see the light of day. This just causes Decker to push harder.
Baldacci does a great job of making everyone seem like a suspect, and you’re left guessing until the very end about just what the heck is going on in this town. It’s a complicated story, as is the case with any Baldacci book. It’s a good mystery if, as I said, you like the character.