The Collectors（ISBN=） 英文原版

　　From Publishers Weekly
　　In bestseller Baldacci’s entertaining if overly long sequel to
The Camel Club (2005), renegade CIA agent Roger Seagraves has set
himself up in the business of freelance assassination and selling
our country’s secrets to the highest bidder. The Camel Club, a
group of four dysfunctional crime solvers headed by ex-CIA assassin
Caleb Shaw, becomes involved with Seagraves through a killing at
the Library of Congress, where one of the club members works.
Meanwhile, an enigmatic young woman, Annabelle Conroy, is
assembling a team to engineer a “long con,” a $33 million scam
targeting Jerry Bagger, the sleazy owner of an Atlantic City
casino. This time around, Baldacci wisely tones down the wackiness
of the club members, focusing instead on bringing Seagraves to
justice while Annabelle works her ingenious scam. The splicing of
the two plots is problematic, but Baldacci sacrifices a bit of
believability to cobble together a new cast of characters destined
to continue fighting the forces of evil in the next installment.
(Oct.)　　
　　From Booklist
　　The four disillusioned, aging gentlemen featured in Baldacci’s
2005 best-seller, The Camel Club, are back in this engaging
offering. The ringleader of the eccentric Washington, D.C., group
(comprising obsessive-compulsive computer-whiz Milton Farb,
decorated Vietnam vet Rueben Rhodes, and slightly rumpled
library-scholar Caleb Shaw) is an ex-CIA conspiracy theorist who
goes by the pseudonym Oliver Stone. All are reunited when Shaw’s
boss, the Library of Congress’ director of Rare Books and Special
Collections, is found dead. (Might he have been killed for
possession of a rare collection of Puritan psalms?) Meanwhile, a
few hundred miles away, sexy scam artist Annabelle Conroy avenges
her mother’s death with a fiendishly clever con pulled on a
nefarious Atlantic City casino magnate. Though his two plots
converge in a rather contrived way, Baldacci delivers crisp,
economical prose and a cast of spies, misfits, and assassins that
would make even the most patriotic citizen question the American
political system. The best of the characters include gorgeous,
gutsy newcomer Annabelle and the wonderfully idiosyncratic Stone,
who spends many a day camped out on the lawn across from the White
House with a sign that says, “I want the truth.”
　　Allison Block　
　　From AudioFile
　　Bestselling author David Baldacci reprises THE CAMEL CLUB, a
slightly wacky group of overage crime-stoppers in Washington, DC,
led by Caleb Shaw, a former CIA assassin. Their efforts to
investigate the mysterious deaths of a prestigious librarian and
the Speaker of the House eventually overlap with another story
line–this one about sassy con artist Annabelle Conroy. The
multivoiced narration provides needed definition for many of the
characters but seems awkward accompanied by the author’s stilted
dialogue tags. Aimee Jolson depicts a smooth and confident Conroy,
while L.J. Ganser and Richard Mover cover the male characters and
the narration. Overall, this is a modestly entertaining sequel,
thanks mostly to the fast-moving plot. N.M.C.

　　Oliver Stone and his Camel Club are in a race to stop a man
who is determined to auction off America to the highest bidder:
Roger Seagraves is selling America to her enemies, one devastating
secret at a time. On a local level, Annabelle Conroy, the most
gifted con artist of her generation, is becoming a bit of a Robin
Hood as she plots a monumental scam against one of the most
ruthless businessmen on earth. As the killings on both fronts
mount, the Camel Club fights the most deadly foes they’ve ever
faced.

　　David Baldacci lives in Virginia where he and his wife have
founded the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization
dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. He invites
you to visit him at
　　 and his foundation at
.