“Is The Truth Ever Simple” An excellent, complex, interwoven story with themes and characters causing strong emotional reactions.
John Fiske, an ex-cop turned defense attorney begins to investigate his younger brother Michael’s murder and unravels an injustice that occured 25 years earlier in an Army prison. Michael, a clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court sought answers to an appeal by Rufus Harms, a huge Afro- American soldier imprisoned for killing a 10 y.o. white girl. Michael paid the price and John seeks the simple truth.
The relationships, past and present, and the mystery of what really happened and by whom 25 years ago keeps the pages turning. I couldn’t put it down. It had several surprises and was so tightly constructed that it kept me thinking. I truly liked some of the characters, Josh and Rufus Harms especially; and Judge Knight’s discourse about the unfairness of the Army’s exemption from being sued by its employees was excellent. I loved this story and highly recommend it.
Product Description Rufus Harms is rotting in a Virginia military prison. As readers learn in the terse opening of The Simple Truth, he was convicted 25 years ago of the brutal killing of a young girl. Readers also learn that Rufus did not commit the crime; out of a haze of memories and with fragments of evidence, he has reconstructed the truth about the horrid event that ruined his life. He knows his discovery could cost him his life, so he breaks from prison after sending an appeal to the Supreme Court that details a massive conspiracy tied into the foundations of Washington. The complex drama of Rufus Harms is only one of the interwoven threads in this massive, violent legal thriller that also draws from the vocabulary of hard-boiled crime fiction. Baldacci offers glimpses into the arcane politics of the high court, where Justice Elizabeth Knight wages war with the manipulative Chief Justice Harold Ramsay. And while Harms struggles to keep out of harm’s way and the justices duke it out, Supreme Court law clerk Sara Evans toils with ex-cop John Fiske to discover the import of Harms’s appeal (and, simultaneously, to uncover the murderer of Mike Fiske, John’s law clerk-brother and the original holder of the appeal). Their interest in the document apparently draws the attention of the same deadly conspirators who manipulated Harms over two decades earlier. While the armed mayhem sometimes rises to the point of excess, Baldacci’s novel continues to offer new surprises until the final pages. –Patrick O’Kelley A gentle giant, convicted of a murder he doesn’t remember committing, has sat in prison for twenty-five years. Now, sprung from prison by his brother, he must elude capture long enough to expose the identity of the true murderers. |
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The Supreme Court is pristine  David Baldacci mixes several lines of interest and plot very convincingly. Very convincing is the military plot of some people who performed experiments on privates without their knowing and agreeing with various drugs like LSD or PCP. The result is an interesting case, approached both through its sexual dimension (raped women in the armed forces) and the experimental dimension at the level of the Supreme Court whose functioning and even function are explored in details, particularly how a decision is built and agreed upon. Here the interest is to know if the armed forces are above the law and if personnel can suit them for compensations and damages when something wrong has taken place. Very convincing too is the career of a defense attorney who started as a cop and resigned after a shoot-out with young drug dealers. He wants the truth in the case that led to the death of his brother, a Supreme Court clerk. His procedure and the plot that builds the novel is very precise and credible. Convincing too is the love affair that develops between this defense attorney and another clerk of the Supreme Court. Both want the truth and are ready to fight and even endanger their position to get it. At this level the book is a perfect example of the rights of a citizen and the dangers and perils for being one to the end, to the dire and bitter finish. To be a citizen is to refuse any compromission with evil and evil elements in society, even if your livelyhood or welfare may be endangered by this action. It is this that is the real dimension of democracy and freedom, and those two values of ours are not untouchable in our societies. They always are the result of a fight within the society for them to be respected by everyone, including the institutions who should uphold them from the very start and by principle. An excellent book because it goes beyond a simple action plot. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU… Decent legal thriller This piece of paper quickly sets the plot in motion as a Supreme Court clerk finds it and later is murdered. John Fiske, the clerk’s brother and Sara Evans, a clerk for one of the Supreme Court justices, start investigating. The romance is piddling and somewhat unecessary but the plot twists and turns nicely. You’ll be able to pick out the other villains before the end, but it’s a decent read. … Another simple truth Too Predictable |
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1 Comment until now
Pretty good but lacking
David Baldacci is a good author, but having said that he basically writes the same book over and over again. As earlier as this, his fourth book, we start to see a pattern in all of his works. We have the evil big organization with a secret to cover up and operatives that are seemingly everywhere. We have the average joe who gets caught in the mix and is basically running around here and there looking for clue while being chased by unknown enemies.
Having said that, this still holds interest rather well. Some twists to basic plot include the military and supreme court perspective, and the characters of Rufus and Josh Harms, one who is a super religious optimistic gentle giant man convicted in military prison for a crime he was not responsible for, and the other who is a Vietnam vet B.A. who basically hates everyone. Other than these two most of the characters are very typical, one dimensional, and that creates corny situations like the sub-par love side story that Baldacci is desperately clinging onto.
There are twists and turns throughout, but some of them, seem like they were just thrown in there because, like m night shyamalan, baldacci has become known for unexpected twists. That’s not a fair comparison because unlike m night shyamalan, baldacci didn’t hit rock bottom with this one, it is still interesting in fact. All I’m saying is that there have been better thriller novels written by both this and other authors.
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