The Camel Club by David Baldacci

 Oliver Stone spends much of his time watching the White House.  He and four friends meet together weekly as the "Camel Club" to discuss anything strange and to chase conspiracy theories. Then one night, by chance, they witness a brutal but very professional murder.  Each of them have a checkered past with the government or the military, and therefore don't believe they will be taken seriously if they come forward with what they saw. Instead, they decide to try to solve the mystery of the murder on their own.  Meanwhile, one of the President's CIA guards, Alex, is assigned to investigate the death, but is taken off the case when he refuses to accept the FBI ruling that it was a suicide.  He and a DOJ agent team up with the Camel Club to dig deeper and by doing so expose a plot that may threaten the peace of the entire world.

Here is another political thriller by Baldacci.  Like the other books by him that I have read, it is relatively clean but contains a fair amount of language and violence. Baldacci is good at intricate plotting with a large host of characters, and as you are reading you have to stay on your toes to keep track of all the different names and backstories. Baldacci gives each one a personality and motivation. He also sneaks in a fair bit of social commentary. (At one point I skipped to the end of a chapter because I got a little tired of it.) The book is old, so the politics it deals with are dated. Also, the series of events at the end of this book are pretty improbable.  As I was reading, I thought to myself, this is a fantasy as much as  a realistic fiction. Still it was fast paced, mostly engaging, and interesting, and I am glad to have another book to recommend for our middle-age-plus male patrons. (2006, 624 p)