The Camel Club by David Baldacci PF ***1/2

This is the first book that introduces the Camel Club and since its release we can anticipate other books to follow in the same genre. Four older individuals who live in Washington D.C. have banded together to form the Camel Club, a club dedicated to expose the truth. It is particularly concerned with political issues. Each of the characters is unique characteristics, attributes and special talents, abilities, and certain mysteries relating to their past. The leading character, Oliver Stone, poses as a homeless individual although he actually does live in a cottage in a cemetery and has a job as caretaker of the park. He presides over the club and is a leading figure throughout the book.

The plot itself is a fascinating and riveting exposure of a terrorist plot to kidnap the president of the United States and hold him for ransom. Although the reader makes all types of assumptions as he/she reads through the manuscript, the plot takes so many twists and turns that most of the assumptions turn out to be inaccurate. That is the basis for the fascination of the book.

What is particularly effective in the book is Baldacci’s bold exposure of some primary weaknesses in U.S. Foreign policy without apology or excuse making. He also has a particular talent for dispelling many stereotypical misconceptions of the Islam community by including an ongoing dialogue between a rich American wife and her housekeeper and babysitter, who is of Muslim descent, and who is actually one of the terrorists included in the plot.

It is captivating reading with lots of mystery and notable amount of action.