The Camel Club by
David Baldacci
hbk out January 06
Published by Macmillan
at £16.99
Baldacci holds degrees in both political science and law, so is in a strong position
to give us a blistering story of political machination in a post 9/11 world of culture
clashes. After ten consecutive best-sellers, you would not bet against this being another
one.
The pipe-opener is the strange actions of an Islamic extremist, who goes to great
lengths to fake his own death at the expense of fellow terrorists, especially as he seems
to have been aided by Americans. We know that this is going to be the core of the tale,
and we are not wrong. A man called Oliver Stone is a resident protester outside the
White House, with the banner I WANT THE TRUTH over his tent. He is also a member
of the quirky Camel Club, a group of oddball individuals intent on winkling out
conspiracies in government. When the group accidentally stumbles on the murder of an
intelligence analyst and computer expert, they are themselves drawn into a complex
conspiracy. Their friend, Secret Service agent Alex Ford, is initially asked to monitor the
investigation into the analyst's death. But when it is declared a suicide, he is warned off
further digging, even though Stone advises him it was murder. Ford is only a few years
off retirement, and rocking the boat could affect his pension rights. However, he persists,
until he is jerked off the case and put on Presidential bodyguard duty. The problem is
that President Brennan is on his way to his home town, which is going to be renamed in
his honour. Despite the best efforts of the new supreme of National Intelligence, Carter
Gray, and his subordinate, Tom Hemingway, things are stirring in the town to be called
Brennan. Djamila is a nanny in the town, but she is not all she seems, and she has contact
with some very suspect people.
Now, either you believe in conspiracies or not. But even if you don't, you can't
deny they make great stories. And Baldacci, as a proven storyteller, is drawing on the
murky world of Islamic terrorism, clash of cultures, and political infighting. He lays out
the battle-lines for us, as we see the world through different eyes, including the not
unsympathetic Djamila, who allows us to see the shock that the so-called freedoms of
American society cause in a person of another belief system. The story itself arrows in
on the president's arrival in Brennan, and the terrorists's preparations. But who is in
charge of the plot? Is there an internal conspiracy within the Intelligence services, and
how will it all end? Baldacci carries us full-tilt through twist after turn, and escalation on
escalation as the tension mounts and the bewildering plot - turns pile on top of the reader.
We are almost led to Armageddon.
The trouble is, a book that starts out just this side of believable soon spirals into the
incredible, as our oddball characters are pitched against those (tempting to include but
basically unbelievable espionage) killing machines who have honed their bare-handed
talents to the extreme. The effort to present the opposite viewpoint to the American
popular perception of Muslim as all extremists sometimes clunks in the slick flow of the
main story. But Hell, what does it matter that implausibility piles on improbability, this
is a rip-roaring hot-rod of a story with all guns blazing. Skip the didactic bits, and go for
the guts before they spill out on the floor. It is bound to be another best-seller.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
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The Camel Club by
David Baldacci
