Tom’s Library Shelf
Tom’s Library Shelf has torn away from the sports books and went into more fiction books for awhile. I read about 80-90 sports books with most baseball for the past few years. They can be found HERE. So I started with a book by the popular author David Baldacci called “Memory Man“.
This is the first of six novels about Amos Decker. Decker was a good athlete in high school and particularly playing football. He went on to college and worked hard to play for his collegiate team and was okay at it as there are thousands of good players like him. He had the ambition to play in the NFL and got himself a few tryouts and he made a team.
On the first play of his first game, Decker got hit so hard, he got knocked out and broke both legs. He spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital recuperating. What he didn’t really know yet was the he suffered from hyperthymesia. This is an ability that allows people to remember nearly every event of their life with great precision. It became a blessing at times and a curse at time. His brain never rested or shut off. One good thing came out of this and that is he met his future wife who was a nurse and understood what he went through and was experiencing.
Since he couldn’t play football, he turned to being a police detective for the local police and with his perfect memory was really good at it for many years. One day after a tough case, he headed home. When he entered his living room, he found his brother-in-law dead on the floor. He stood and analyzed the scene with his perfect memory and then he thought of his wife. He rushed upstairs to the bedroom and found her dead in a weird position near the bed. He stood for a few seconds taking it all in. Suddenly he wondered about his daughter and rushed to her room and she wasn’t there. Back out in the hall he discovered the light on in the bathroom. He went in and his 8 yr old daughter was dead on the toilet with a belt on her to strap her on. He took in the scene and then just sat down and contemplated suicide. He called the police.
The police came and removed his gun so he didn’t kill himself. He couldn’t figure out in the following weeks and months who could have done it. The murders were left unsolved. Over the next few years he spiral out of control. He left the force and gained lots of weight and was in terrible condition. He became a Private Investigator to make some money as he lost his will to do anything and he became homeless and cared nothing about his welfare.
He had enough money to move into a Residence Inn and could eat their full breakfast everyday. One day his old partner came and had some news for him and that was the fact that a random guy came into the police station and confess to the murdering of Decker’s family.
Curiosity piqued. Decker wanted to visit the prisoner but knew they wouldn’t let him. He came up with a plan that when most were out for a special case he would go in and see people that never knew him and pretend to be a lawyer. That worked when there was a school shooting and all veteran police were out on that call. He got to see the guy and asked him a bunch of questions and decided the man didn’t do as he couldn’t give correct answers to some only Decker knew.
From here the intrigues starts. I am not going to give you the rest of the story but the school shooting and the murder of his family 20 years earlier are connected. This is a great book to read and easy to understand. I recommend this book.
-Tom
More to Come Soon