Kate’s 2¢: “To Die For” by David Baldacci

“To Die For” by David Baldacci

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

The multiple readers of this book made sure you knew who was speaking. Ony thing missing were sound effects to make it a radio show.

A few take-aways:

• If we resign and leave the field to them…then  only the power hunger a-holes without a hint of morale conscious will be left in charge to trample all over  the Constitution and the rights of every American.
• –If enough people believe over thowing the government can’t happen, then they’ve assured it will happen.
• –It’s high time we all started ooperating, if we want to have a country to serve.
• –They want allthe wealth and power, along with the population of that looks the same, etc.
• –He’d taken an oath to sacrifice his life for his country, so that his fellow citizens could live free.

 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Baldacci (born August 5, 1960) is an American novelist. An attorney by education, Baldacci writes mainly suspense novels and legal thrillers.[1] His novels are published in over 45 languages and published in over 80 countries.[2] Baldacci Has sold over 150 million copies worldwide.

Early life and education[edit]

David Baldacci was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. He is of Italian descent. He graduated from Henrico High School and earned a B.A. in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law, after which he practiced law for nine years in Washington, D.C.

Career[edit]

File:City_of_Richmond_Business…

Richmond, Virginia, hometown of Baldacci

Baldacci began writing stories as a child, when his mother gave him a notebook in which to record them.[3] He wrote for more than two decades, penning short stories and later screenplays without much success.[4]

While practicing law, he turned to novel writing, taking three years to write Absolute Power.[5] Published in 1996, it was an international best-seller. To date, Baldacci has published 50 novels for adults as well as seven novels for younger readers.

Personal life and philanthropy[edit]

Baldacci lives in Fairfax County, Virginia, with his family. He has a daughter and a son.[6]

Baldacci and his wife, Michelle, founded the Wish You Well Foundation,[7] which works to combat illiteracy in the United States by funding adult literacy programs.[8] Baldacci became involved with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society after his sister, author Sharon Baldacci, was diagnosed with MS.[9] In 2008 the Foundation partnered with Feeding America to launch Feeding Body & Mind.

Baldacci has served for more than a decade on the board of trustees of the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. In 2019, he donated $1 million to the home.[10]

Works[edit]

Baldacci’s first novel, Absolute Power, tells the story of a fictional American president and his Secret Service agents who are willing to commit murder in order to cover up the accidental death of a woman with whom the President was having an affair. It was adapted as a film, Absolute Power (1997), starring Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman.

Baldacci wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of his novel Wish You Well; the movie was shot on location in southwest Virginia with Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn, Josh Lucas, and Mackenzie Foy in the lead roles.

Baldacci was a consulting producer on King & Maxwell, a TNT television series based on his characters Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. Jon Tenney and Rebecca Romijn starred.

The Christmas Train, Baldacci’s eighth novel, was adapted in 2017 by Hallmark Channel as a Hallmark Hall of Fame feature presentation. The TV movie starred Dermot Mulroney, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Danny Glover and Joan Cusack and was directed by Ron Oliver.

Baldacci’s novel One Summer was adapted in 2021 for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and starred Sam Page, Sarah Drew and Amanda Schull.

Baldacci’s novels have been published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with over 130 million worldwide sales as of 2018.[11]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

To die for DB125480

Baldacci, David. Reading time: 12 hours, 1 minute.

Read by Zach Villa; Christine Lakin; Kiff VandenHeuvel; Rena-Marie Villano; Erin Bennett; Mela Lee; Will Collyer; Cassandra Morris.

Suspense Fiction

Mystery and Detective Stories

“Travis Devine has become a pro at accomplishing any mission he’sgiven. But this time it’s not his skills that send him to Seattle to aid the FBI in escorting orphaned, twelve-year-old Betsy Odom to ameeting with her uncle, who’s under federal investigation. Instead,he’s hoping to lay low and keep off the radar of an enemy-the girl on the train. But as Devine gets to know Betsy, questions begin to arise around the death of her parents. Devine digs for answers, and what he finds points to a conspiracy bigger than he could’ve ever imagined. It might finally be time for Devine and the girl on the trainto come face-to-face. Devine is going to find out the difference between his friends and his enemies-and in some cases, they might wellbe both.”–Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.

Downloaded: March 27, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “The Way The Crow Flies: A Novel” by Ann Marie MacDonald  

“The Way The Crow Flies: A Novel” by Ann Marie MacDonald  

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Kimberly Schraf did a good job of reading this rather disturbing story. The Fourth Grade  teacher, a Pedi file never did get exposed.The children he influenced  suffered the results.

   I suspect  the military motto “Threw adversity To The Stars” intended for the program, was never meant for the adversity to show up in the base’s micro-culture of society.

   The author’s use of the crows intermittently throughout the story was interesting.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MacDonald is the daughter of a member of Canada’s military; she was born at an air force base near Baden-Baden, West Germany. She is of partial Lebanese descent through her mother.[1]

MacDonald won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for her first novel, Fall on Your Knees (1996),[2] which was selected for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club in January 2002.[3]

MacDonald received the Governor General’s Award for Drama,[4] the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award,[5] and the Canadian Authors Association Drama Award[6] for her play, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

MacDonald hosted the CBC documentary series Life and Times for seven seasons. MacDonald also hosted CBC’s flagship documentary program, Doc Zone for eight seasons.

She appeared in the films I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing and Better Than Chocolate, among others.

MacDonald’s 2003 novel, The Way the Crow Flies, was partly inspired by the Steven Truscott case. Her third novel Adult Onset was released in 2014 and has been translated into five languages. Her fourth novel Fayne was published in 2022.[7]

She was the inaugural Mordecai Richler Reading Room Writer in Residence at Concordia University,[8] and she coaches students in the Acting and Playwriting Programs at the National Theatre School of Canada.

In 2008, MacDonald was awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities by the University of Windsor.[9]

In May 2015, MacDonald was the “big-name author” and “public face”[10] of the inaugural Canadian Authors for Indies Day, organized to bring attention to independent bookstores across the country. Nearly 100 stores and 270 authors participated in the nationwide event.[10]

In December 2018, MacDonald was named as an Officer of the Order of Canada, in recognition of “her multi-faceted contributions to the arts in Canada and for her advocacy of LGBTQ+ and women’s rights”.[11]

In 2019, MacDonald was diagnosed with seronegative rheumatoid arthritis, which affected every aspect of her life, including work. She finished her novel Fayne while strapped to a chair in order to be able to type. Her illness caused the novel’s completion to be delayed by a year. As of 2023, she is symptom-free.[12][13]

MacDonald is married to the Canadian playwright and theatre director Alisa Palmer.[14][15]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The way the crow flies: a novel DB57171

MacDonald, Ann-Marie. Reading time: 35 hours, 11 minutes.

Read by Kimberly Schraf.

Mystery and Detective Stories

Family

Psychological Fiction

Ontario, Canada; 1962. A girl is strangled on a military base where eight-year-old Madeleine McCarthy and classmates are being molested by their teacher. Meanwhile, Madeleine’s father is safeguarding an ex-Nazi scientist. Their secrets involving the murder day lead to more tragedy. Some descriptions of sex, some violence, and some strong language. 2003.

Downloaded: March 6, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “Bellview: A Novel” by Robin Cook

“Bellview: A Novel” by Robin Cook

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   John Pirhalla  did a good job of narrating this book for the NLS. This isn’t the first book I’ve read by Robin Cook. The only comment I have is to not read his novels if you’re about to have a hospital stay.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Brian “Robin” Cook (born May 4, 1940)[2] is an American physician and novelist who writes largely about medicine and topics affecting public health.

He is known best for combining medical writing with the thriller genre. Many of his books have been bestsellers on The New York Times Best Seller List. Several of his books have also been featured by Reader’s Digest. His books have sold nearly 400 million copies worldwide.[3]

Early life and career[edit]

Cook was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Woodside, Queens. He relocated to Leonia, New Jersey when he was eight years old, where he could first have the “luxury” of having his own room.[4] He graduated from Leonia High School in 1958.[5]

Subsequently, Cook graduated from Wesleyan University and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and finished his postgraduate medical training at Harvard.[1]

Cook managed the Cousteau Society’s blood-gas laboratory in the south of France. He later became an aquanaut (a submarine doctor) with the U.S. Navy’s SEALAB program when he was drafted in 1969.[6] Cook served in the Navy from 1969 to 1971, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander. He wrote his first novel, Year of the Intern, while serving aboard the Polaris-type submarine USS Kamehameha.[2]

Novelist[edit]

The Year of the Intern, was a failure, but Cook began to study bestsellers.[4] He said, “I studied how the reader was manipulated by the writer. I came up with a list of techniques that I wrote down on index cards. And I used every one of them in Coma.”[4] He conceived the idea for Coma, about creating illegally a supply of transplant organs, in 1975.[4] In March 1977, that novel’s paperback rights sold for $800,000.[4] It was followed by the Egyptology thriller Sphinx in 1979 and another medical thriller, Brain, in 1981.[4] Cook then decided he preferred writing rather than a medical career.[4]

Cook’s novels combine medical fact with fantasy. His medical thrillers are designed, in part, to keep the public aware of both the technological possibilities of modern medicine and the socio-ethical problems associated with it.[2]: 73  Cook says he chose to write thrillers because they give him “an opportunity to get the public interested in things about medicine that they didn’t seem to know about. I believe my books are actually teaching people.”[7]

The author admits he never thought that he would have such compelling material to work with when he began writing fiction in 1970. “If I tried to be the writer I am today a number of years ago, I wouldn’t have very much to write about. But today, with the pace of change in biomedical research, there are any number of different issues, and new ones to come,” he says.[8]

Cook’s novels have anticipated national controversy. In an interview with Stephen McDonald about the novel Shock, Cook admitted the book’s timing was fortuitous:

I suppose that you could say that it’s the most like Coma in fact that it deals with an issue that everybody seems to be concerned about. I wrote this book to address the stem cell issue, which the public really doesn’t know anything about. Besides entertaining readers, my main goal is to get people interested in some of these issues, because it’s the public that ultimately should be able to decide which way we ought to go in something as ethically questioning as stem cell research.[8]

To date, Cook has fictionalized issues such as organ donation, fertility treatment, genetic engineering, in vitro fertilization, research funding, managed care, medical malpractice, medical tourism, drug research, and organ transplantation.[7]

“I joke that if my books stop selling, I can always fall back on brain surgery,” he says. “But I am still very interested in it. If I had to do it over again, I would still study medicine. I think of myself more as a doctor who writes, rather than a writer who happens to be a doctor.” He explained the popularity of his works thus: “The main reason is, we all realize we are at risk. We’re all going to be patients sometime,” he says. “You can write about great white sharks or haunted houses, and you can say I’m not going into the ocean or I’m not going in haunted houses, but you can’t say you’re not going to go into a hospital.”[8]

Many of his novels concern hospitals (both fictional and non-fictional) in Boston, which may have to do with the fact that he had his post-graduate training at Harvard and lives in Boston, and/ or in New York.

Personal life[edit]

He is on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.[9]

Cook is a private member of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees, directed by chairman Joseph B. Gildenhorn, are appointed to six-year terms by the President of the United States.[10]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Bellevue: a novel DB126298

Cook, Robin. Reading time: 11 hours, 23 minutes.

Read by John Pirhalla.

Suspense Fiction

Family

Medical Fiction

“Twenty-three-year-old Michael ‘Mitt’ Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the nearly three-hundred-year-old, iconic Bellevue Hospital. The pressure is on for this newly minted doctor, but quickly one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. As bodies mount and Mitt’s stress level rises, he finds himself drawn to the abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building, which still stands a few doors north of the modern Bellevue Hospital high-rise. Forcing entry into this storied but foreboding structure, Mitt discovers he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.

Downloaded: March 27, 2025

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