THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 21, 1996 TAG: 9602210040
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
PUMPED WITH adrenaline, career burglar Luther Whitney pulls up to the mansion that he's cased for months. He disarms the security system in seconds and heads for the master bedroom.
He isn't expecting company. But, just then, a limo and a van pull up outside and five people get out.
Whitney knows the floor plan and ducks into a vault hidden behind what looks like an ordinary full-length mirror. He crouches amid cash bundles, bonds, jewelry and antique coins.
When the surprise guests show up in the same bedroom and switch on the lights, Whitney thinks he's caught. Then he realizes that the vault door is really one-way glass and that he is free to watch unseen.
Through the glass, Whitney recognizes the lady of the house, the trophy wife of an elderly billionaire - a woman with a hooker's taste in clothes. And with her is the most powerful man in the world.
Whitney collapses in the upholstered chair apparently placed in the vault for voyeuristic reasons. He watches as the sex play gets rough. The man hits the woman. She picks up a letter opener and aims for his chest. Then two men in business suits walk in with guns blazing. At that point, Whitney knows his life will never be the same.
The set-up for Baldacci's first novel, ``Absolute Power'' (Warner Books, 469 pp., $22.95), is admittedly wild, unbelievable, even absurd. But that's where the White House cover-up begins.
Baldacci, who lives in Alexandria and is a University of Virginia law school grad, has written a thriller reminiscent of John Grisham's blockbuster ``The Firm.'' Until recently, Baldacci was a corporate lawyer with a Washington firm. In ``Absolute Power,'' he writes what he knows, with telling details of Virginia law and politics.
His characters are not all extensively developed. But it doesn't matter, because this book officially qualifies as a you-can't-put-it-down kind of page turner. It's fast, provocative and fascinating. It's part crime story, part love story - full of passion, violence and paradox. It even teaches some moral lessons.
One of the few characters who has depth is Whitney, the 60-something burglar.
As time passes, Whitney grows sick thinking about his lack of action that night behind the one-way mirror - horrified that he traded his freedom and maybe his life for that of another human being.
His daughter enriches his portrait. Although they have been estranged for years at her insistence, Kate Whitney often thinks about her father:
``Through all the pain, the most vivid memories she held of her father was his gentleness. . . . He would speak to her about things a little girl was interested in. Flowers and birds and the way the sky changed color all of a sudden. And about dresses and hair ribbons and wobbly teeth that she constantly fiddled with. They were brief but sincere moments, between a father and a daughter, smashed in between the sudden violence of convictions, of prison.''
At one point, she stumbles upon the shrine her father has kept of her - the pictures of all the important moments in her life that he has somehow captured and recorded on film without ever being visible. It's a scene she isn't ready to accept.
Jack Graham has loved Kate for years but is engaged to a wealthy society woman. He is also Baldacci's alter ego - a U.Va. law school grad and lawyer at a prestigious firm, destined for success. It is Graham who takes Whitney on as his client and finds himself entangled in an intricate web.
The cast of characters includes Secret Service agents, the president's chief of staff and even a hired killer.
Nearly every character in ``Absolute Power'' is forced against the wall - faced with the toughest ethical and moral questions of a lifetime. The book is about how they answer their individual tests and how they live with themselves afterward. It's a lot like real life. There are abundant surprises, and some of the least likely characters are the best moral teachers. by CNB