Deliver Us From Evil

Deliver Us From Evil

By David Baldacci

Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Books

ISBN: 978-0-446-56408-3

3.5 stars

Evan Waller is a monster. A sadistic and ruthless killer, he cares for nothing and no one. His business practices are cold and methodical; money being his only goal. He traffics in women, children, and nuclear weapons and people in the world believe he should be brought to justice. One such person is Reggie Campion, a member of a secret vigilante group. Her group has an agenda and that is to hunt down Waller, show him his deeds, and bring justice. She intends to kill him. Unfortunately, she is not the only person hunting Waller. Shaw, a mysterious operative from an unknown government agency, is also out for Waller. When Waller, Reggie, and Shaw all end up in Provence, the hunt begins.

There is one thing I need to say right off the start with this book — Waller is a great bad guy. He’s cruel, disgusting, scary, cold, calculating, and just so good at being bad that you honestly want him to be dead. And you don’t want his death to be a pleasant or easy one, the guy should suffer. So when two people do try to kill him, you find yourself cheering them on. OK, so I was a bit disturbed by the fact that I was cheering on two characters to take the life of a third but he was that bad!

While it’s an engrossing and fast read, there are a few corny lines and some “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” moments in this book. And it’s a, “I’ve got your back do you have mine?” line that is the culprit I’m hinting about here. Some of the dialog felt odd, old, and a bit bumbling, but this didn’t ruin it. While those hokey lines take you out of the story for a breather, there is enough to pull you back in quickly. This is a story about people out to murder a murderer, and there are a few torture scenes that I could have gone without reading, but they did fit so I can’t say they were too much.

The ending, I feel I must address it. No, don’t worry, I won’t be ruining it by telling you any more than this — for me it felt predictable. I think I was expecting more from the bad guy. Up to this point in the book he had been much more creative and while it’s a fast paced ending, I felt as if it had been done before. There is one more thing that bothered me about the ending but in the spirit of not giving it all away I will say no more than it was just too easy.

Now, you will be entertained by this book, if you like thrillers like this, but once the book is done, you’ll move on to the next easily without lingering. I don’t think this is a bad thing as there are a lot of books out there that I don’t find myself thinking about after I turn the last page. It’s just a warning from me and how I felt, you might have a completely different reaction so feel free to ignore this. If you’re looking for something to keep you busy on a plane or at the beach, it’s not a bad pick.