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Summary and Reviews of Last Man Standing by David Baldacci

Last Man Standing by David Baldacci

Last Man Standing

by David Baldacci
  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Readers' Rating (5):
  • First Published:
  • Nov 1, 2001, 548 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Aug 2002, 656 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

An explosive psychological thriller about a man desperate to find answers—from the secret terrors he has kept from himself to his unbearable guilt.

Since his astounding debut novel, Absolute Power, David Baldacci has delivered a series of stunning, bestselling thrillers—plunging readers into riveting, fast-paced dramas between the innocent and corrupt, killers and their targets. In his extraordinary new work, Baldacci uses his unsurpassed storytelling skills to explore the essence of survival itself, as a conspiracy of violence surrounds an FBI agent whose fate was to be the...

Last Man Standing

It took ten seconds for Web London to lose everything: his friends, his team, his reputation. Point man of the FBI's super-elite Hostage Rescue Team, Web roared into a blind alley toward a drug dealer's lair, only to meet a high-tech, custom-designed ambush that killed everyone around him. Now coping with the blame-filled words of anguished widows and the suspicions of colleagues, Web tries to put his life back together with the help of his psychiatrist, Dr. Claire Daniels. To do so, he must discover why he was the one man who lived through the ambush—and find the only other person who came out of that alley alive...a ten-year-old boy who has since disappeared.

Web's search leads him from inner-city Washington, D.C., to the rolling hills of Virginia horse country—while people connected to him are violently silenced. Acting on his instincts, Web believes he knows where the killer will strike next. Only this time, he may not survive the attack. Last Man Standing is an explosive psychological thriller about a man desperate to find answers—from the secret terrors he has kept from himself to his unbearable guilt. His fight to save himself and those he cares for will come at a high cost...and threaten everything he has grown to believe in. With vividly realized characters and a breathtaking pace, this is another spellbinding novel from David Baldacci, one of today's best storytellers.

Web London held a semiautomatic SR75 rifle custom built for him by a legendary gunsmith. The SR didn't stop at merely wounding flesh and bone; it disintegrated them. Web would never leave home without this high chieftain of muscle guns, for he was a man steeped in violence. He was always prepared to kill, to do so efficiently and without error. Lord, if he ever took a life by mistake he might as well have eaten the bullet himself, for all the misery it would cause him. Web just had that complex way of earning his daily bread. He couldn't say he loved his job, but he did excel at it.

Despite having a gun welded to his hand virtually every waking moment of his life, Web was not one to coddle his weapons. While he never called a pistol his friend or gave it a slick name, weapons were still an important part of Web's life, though like wild animals guns were not things easily tamed. Even trained lawmen missed their targets and everything else eight out of ten times. To Web, ...

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Reviews

Media Reviews

Booklist
Baldacci's fans, of which there are many, will be happy to see him back in thriller-writing mode.

Library Journal
After a brief sojourn into historical fiction, Baldacci is back in the thriller mode. When his FBI Hostage Rescue Team is ambushed, sole survivor Web London has to prove his innocence.

Publishers Weekly
His latest is another exciting thriller, but one that hasn't forsaken the ambitions of Wish You Well, plumbing the emotions and exploring the shadings of human nature in an impressive way. And for the first time, Baldacci has created characters that readers will demand to see back in a sequel.

Reader Reviews

matrix

I thought it was one of the best mysteries printed in a long time.Hope author makes more
adventures for Web.
Rodd

Last Man Standing
Although I liked the book, I was a bit disappointed with the ending. It left me wondering if there was going to be another book with Web London and Claire in it. We are left with more questions about Web than answers.
Crystal

I had a really hard time getting into this book. It was a long time before I could get into this book enough to even want to finish it. Once I got past that difficult part, the book wasn't so bad, but if you don't have me from the first word of the...   Read More
mlt

First and Last
Get to the point, please. Characters may be well-developed but takes too much and forever and a day to get them and the story unfold. Resisted quitting midway several times until I finally gave in.. for another real thriller. First book to ever ...   Read More

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Read-Alikes

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    A Washington conspiracy thriller in which 'the bad guys are sufficiently evil, the plot properly labyrinthine, the solution to the mystery completely satisfying. This is high-level entertainment from a writer who could soon rise to the top of the thriller heap'.

  • The Oath jacket

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    Too many patients have been dying and it looks like it is the hospital that is killing them. Hardy uncovers a twisting conspiracy of avarice and violence that takes the lives it is sworn to save.

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