Detective in the making

Set in post-war America, thriller specialist Baldacci's latest features a former soldier, a charming amateur hero who has to prove his innocence, says P S Nissim

David Baldacci is well-known for his thriller novels, featuring do-gooders of various stripes figuring out every kind of modern-day crime. With his latest work, Baldacci takes on new territory and a new kind of hero. ‘One Good Deed’ is set in post-war America, an era where the country was just awakening to a new world order and a growing rejection of Victorian-era values. It features a former soldier, Aloysius Archer, who was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit and is now an ex-con, looking for work.

After his release from prison, Archer arrives in the small town of Poca City to serve out his parole period and hopefully find a job. His parole officer, Ernestine Crabtree, is a young lady who has been receiving a lot of unwanted male attention for taking up the job, but who strikes Archer as very competent and determined. On the evening of his first day out, he walks into a nearby bar and happens to meet Hank Pittleman, a shady tycoon who offers him a rather unpalatable assignment — that of a debt collector. Archer is to go to the home of Lucas Tuttle, an old-fashioned farmer who has taken a loan from Pittleman, and “recover” the Cadillac car that the farmer had pledged as collateral. Archer takes up the task, but is not quite sure what he’s getting into, so he does what previous applicants didn’t do: he goes to talk to Tuttle to understand why he hadn’t paid off the loan. It turns out there’s a personal angle to the whole story. Jackie, Tuttle’s daughter, left home a year ago and is now Pittleman’s mistress. Her father would like her to come back home, but she has been refusing to do so.

Back in town, Archer runs into Jackie and there is an instant spark of chemistry. The two escort the drunken Pittleman back to the latter’s room and wind up spending the night together. But the morning brings terrible tidings. Pittleman has been murdered, his throat slit, yet no money stolen. And Archer is now the prime suspect.

Baldacci builds up the suspense well from here on, with Archer on a deadline to prove his own innocence in a strange town. Fortunately, the police detective, Irving Shaw, believes Archer for the time being, and wants his help in investigating the crime. Ernestine offers a place to stay while the investigation is on.

But more complications are appearing in the case and Archer struggles to understand the relationships between the various denizens of the town — the key, it appears, to solve the mystery and clear his own name.

Period flavour

This is a period novel, and Baldacci takes particular care to stay true to the atmosphere of the time.

While the brand name-dropping of the clothing, cars, and foods may get a bit too much at times, he does better at bringing in the social attitudes of the era. Working women are still an anomaly in this America and are in for harassment all the time. The mores towards sexuality are just beginning to change.

There’s an instant camaraderie between soldiers who have been to the war front and made it back alive. Prices and wages are on the “good old days” side.

The language of the characters, too, feels right. Archer as a character feels fresh and unforced. He’s obviously built from the ‘Loner Good Guy’ template —ex-military or cop, no immediate family, no fixed home base, with a personal code of justice and honour.

We’ve seen others in the same style, notably Reacher, the hero of the popular series by Lee Child, and the Stranger’s role that Clint Eastwood played in his cowboy movies.

But having this kind of interested amateur as the hero lets the story go in interesting directions. There are several strong hints that Archer is all set to become a private detective after the events of this book. It’s tempting to want this to turn into a detective series, but it actually works better as a standalone book with its charismatic amateur hero. Will Baldacci resist the temptation? Time alone will tell.