Mega-famous author David Baldacci’s No Man’s Land is the latest novel in his John Puller series and a prime example of why he’s one of today’s most beloved writers.
At the heart of this novel is a tragedy that has clawed at John Puller, Baldacci’s Jack Reacher-like character, for more than three decades.
As a boy, Puller’s mother went missing. The ensuing investigations and searches into her disappearance went nowhere, and she was never heard from again. Now, for the first time in thirty years, new evidence has surfaced.
Puller’s father, John Sr., who is now fighting dementia in a VA hospital, had always told his son the same story regarding his mother’s vanishing. But when John goes to see his dad one day, he unexpectedly finds Ted Hull, an investigator with the CID, and Colonel David Shorr waiting for him.
As it turns out, a woman who was friends with Puller’s mother, who is now dying from pancreatic cancer, had something she wanted to get off her chest. The woman’s husband had served with Puller’s father in Vietnam, so the family connections are deep, making her somewhat credible. Sending a letter to the CID, she claims that it was John Puller Sr. who murdered his wife.
Before having brought the information to Puller, the two investigators had done some digging. Puller’s dad was never a suspect thirty years ago because his military records stated that he was out of the country at the time his wife went missing. But now, the validity of that statement is being called into question due to newly found civilian travel documents.
Puller, though, knows that for the Army to open a formal investigation against a legendary three-star general like his father, they had to have something else they weren’t sharing with him. After they refused to let him in on any other evidence, Puller, a warrant officer in the Criminal Investigation Command of the United States Army, vowed to get to the bottom of things himself. But after showing interest, Puller was told to stay out of his father’s case at all costs. Failure to comply could jeopardize his career.
In the end, the chance to find out the truth about his mother and his father’s past was something John just couldn’t pass up.
Unfortunately, while cleaning out the skeletons from his parents’ closet, a blast from his own past comes knocking, and he’s not playing nice. With problems being thrown at him from every direction, all of which are very personal to Puller, Baldacci’s hero must find a way to juggle everything at once or risk having it all crash down around him.
Told in compelling fashion with relentless pacing and plenty of action, David Baldacci delivers another winner that readers will devour.
Author: David Baldacci
Series: John Puller #4
Pages: 432 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 145558651X
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: November 15, 2016 (Order Now!)