Zero Day (John Puller Book 1) Kindle Edition

John Puller is an investigator with the CID, the Criminal Investigative Unit based in Virginia. An experienced and accomplished soldier, Puller is sent to West Virginia to investigate the suspicious death of a DIA agent. Upon arriving in West Virginia, the mystery deepens further as Puller investigates DIA agent's death as that of his entire family. As the body count piles up, Puller teams up with local cop Samantha Cole in a race to find answers and uncovers an unexpected deception bigger than one man can possibly handle alone.One of the most impressive elements of this book is Baldacci's character dialogue. Staccato, fast paced, and completely authentic, the dialogue adds dimensions to the characters, situations, and places with flawless execution. Puller is a rough, ready and patriotic Army man who served six tours in Afghanistan and carries his fair share of scars and medals to prove it. You would expect a macho unstoppable machine without emotion but Baldacci does an excellent job of walking the line and creates a character with just the right mixture of humor, justified bravado based on experience and skilled training honed to a razor edge, with a nice touch of humanity. Puller has a soft spot and it shows through like a brief ray of sunshine, making him an extraordinarily likable character.Sergeant Samantha Cole is the perfect counterbalance to Puller. A feisty, seasoned cop who gives as good as she gets from Puller, she can stand her own and then some. The verbal banter between them is a joy to experience as the story evolves. A host of other characters complement the dynamic duo and provide layers of intrigue and mystery throughout. The language is crisp, clear, and exacting in its execution.There are times when you read a book and understand immediately why a writer is a bestseller. Baldacci is one of those writers. He is at the top of his game with Zero Day. Riveting, fast paced, with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing to the very end. This is one hot thriller and hopefully we'll see more of John Puller in the future. I could not put Zero Day down from the moment I read the free sample and finished the 434 pages within 24 hours - about eight hours reading time. This is one great winter read!

I had been a big fan of Baldacci early in his career but he fell out of favor with me after finding many of his books in recent years to be more miss that hit. I won't spend time describing Zero Day's plot as this can be found by reading the Amazon Book Description above. I will, however, spend some time describing why I think Zero Hour is more hit than miss and is worth reading -- if you can suspend your sense of disbelief a bit more than usual.On ths plus side, (1) Baldacci writes in a style that does an above average job in maintaining reader interest, (2) the plot is complex enough to keep the reader guessing about the motives behind the multiple murders that occurred in a small West Virginia and about will happen next, (3) the main character -- Army CID Investigator John Puller -- is likable and pretty well developed (although he is very reminiscent of another larger-than-life character, namely Jack Reacher), and (4) there is a decent amount of action that occurs throughout the book (although if you're looking for non-stop action and excitement you're likely going to be a bit disappointed).While I said Zero Day is more hit than miss, it does have the following misses that result in my deducting one star (actually 1 1/2 stars, if possible) from my rating: (1) Although a fun read overall, I feel the book would have benefited from being 50-75 pages shorter, as I found that the plot dragged at times, (2) most of the secondary characters were thinly developed and (3) without going into detail, the "off the cuff" very detailed scientific information Puller's brother -- imprisoned for life for treason -- provided John Puller to enable him to "save the day" really required me to suspend belief somewhat more than I was willing to, and (4) the climax, while entertaining, was pretty far-fetched -- again requiring the reader to suspend belief.As you can see from my comments, I enjoyed Zero Day but it is far from a flawless book. Despite its flaws, I plan to read the next book in the series, The Forgotten, featuring Jack Puller.

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Never had such enjoyment in reading this authors novels.........

Constructed around a technically credible and tightly scripted story Baldacci has written another brilliant page turner. This book rivals the very best action thrillers.

Wonderfully complex story. Great characters and situations, rich with good detail and page turning action plus a peak into military politics.A great read that will find you picking up the book when you should really be doing some work! Ah well, the work will wait!!!

A real page turner. Puller is hired to look into a strange mystery in West Virginia and we follow him through a route paved with crimes and deceptions. And Baldacci keeps us glued to Puller's steps until the answer to the mystery is found.