Point of View

Author Baldacci uses a third person narrative to weave his complex tale of corruption, murder, greed, and blackmail, but the reader notices a definite division among the characters that is revealing from the very beginning, relative to omniscience. The narrator has total omniscience with most major characters who are, in fact, innocent or involved in crime investigation. For example, the reader knows quite early that Sidney Archer is innocent of any collusion with her husband, through complete knowledge of her thoughts, including her complete lack of knowledge of the true purpose of Jason's "business" trip and her thinking processes as she attempts to investigate her husband's activities, in order to prove his innocence. As well the thoughts and deliberations of Lee Sawyer, chief FBI investigator, are revealed so that the reader can follow the steps that will eventually combine three crimes into one of such complex...