Simple Genius (King & Maxwell Series Book 3)

It was a page turner ! The characters were great can't wait for book 3.I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys suspense.

Great characters; believable plot. Great suspense. Good ending. Thoroughly enjoyed this book. David Baldacci is my new, favorite writer. Read this.

Love the King & Maxwell series - only negative I can think of is that you never want the book to end but you end up reading it in about one day! This seller, by the way, is fantastic. Books are in good condition and they are VERY rapid in mailing them out to you. I just ordered 3 more from this series on Friday, and as of Saturday afternoon they were already shipped.

I really liked the story line but the unusual names were difficult and distracting. The technical descriptions were above my head and uninteresting. Still glad to have read it.

king and Maxwell are I interesting people in complicated cated plots. I am hoping there is a 4th book in this series.

I am a fan of former Secret Service agents turned private investigators Sean King and Michelle Maxwell.I like these two characters quite a lot: Maxwell for her courage, her grit, and the fact that she is a strong woman willing to mix it up with bad guys when the occasion calls for it. King I like because he doesn't take Maxwell for granted, treats her as an equal, and the fact that he generally (though not always) thinks before he acts.I am not, however, such a big fan of their creator, author David Baldacci. Often his plots stretch the boundaries of credibility and he sometimes uses words incorrectly. Additionally, he often adds descriptors where none are needed. For example, when one of his characters asks an obvious question he will add "she said, interrogatively." Really, we got that she was asking a question... that descriptor is not necessary."Simple Genius" is an unusual Baldacci novel in two respects: First because it casts Maxwell in an unfamiliar light as someone who needs psychiatric help dealing with a long-buried emotional trauma, and second because King and Maxwell investigate two separate cases independently. Maxwell uncovers criminal activity at the mental institution she has voluntarily entered while King takes a case involving the death of a computer genius.Baldacci gets high marks for giving readers a very in-depth look into Maxwell's life and for creating some interesting secondary characters including an FBI agent who seems out of his depth when it comes to investigating the murder of the computer genius. The author, however, loses points when he situates a top-secret CIA training facility across a river from a private think tank - which is equally mysterious. The CIA wouldn't locate a facility that close to another, privately owned facility for obvious security reasons. As it turns out, the CIA facility is apparently too easy to break into - the dead computer genius did and so do King and Maxwell. There are other plot issues but I won't go into them because that would be unfair to those that haven't read - or listened to - this book. I'll simply say that, again, Baldacci has stretched the bounds of credulity.Not a bad read for Baldacci fans, but not on a par with other best-selling authors; I give it 4 stars because, as I said, I really do like the King and Maxwell characters.

It doesn't take Michelle long to get into trouble in this book. She walks into a bar and starts beating up the toughest guy she sees. She almost kills him. Then she lets him live and he almost kills her. Somebody calls the cops and they save her life - barely. She dies in the ambulance and again at the hospital but they manage to save her and she eventually recovers. Sean finally realizes she has mental issues. He spends all his money and the partnership's money getting a shrink to fix her head. Then to make back some money, he takes a dangerous job in which he has to investigate the CIA, FBI and DIA for murder in two camps on either side of the York River in Virginia. Yes, they can't seem to get away from rural Virginia. Lots of nasty things happen there. On the "private" side of the River, spied on by the aforementioned Government organizations, there is a camp for the development of secret codes by a bunch of civilian geniuses. Sean's assignment is to investigate the suspicious death of a genius who swam to the CIA side of the River where there is a secret camp into which a large jet carrying foreign spies flies in at 2 am once a week.There is a lot of swimming and deep thinking. The guy who died had a cute little girl who is, herself, a genius. When Michelle joins him, she begins by helping Sean care for the little girl. She teaches the girl to kayak. More people at the genius camp start dying. Sean chases the lonely wife of the CIA chief who runs the CIA camp. Wait a minute! Maybe SHE IS the CIA chief. No one is who they say they are including the friendly county sherriff who invites Sean to work with him to investigate the murders.There is a lot more swimming and shooting. Along the way we learn why Michelle has to keep her trucks and cars all messed up. Sean and Michelle are tortured by the CIA. It seems to cure Michelle of her Death wish.Very good story!

A great book, highly recommend. Baldacci never disappoints. And is always a cliffhanger. Starting the next in this series tomorrow. Good nite folks.

Simple GeniusThis is the third in the series of books from David Baldacci featuring former Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. I first read it several years ago and because I read it out of sequence I found it less than enjoyable mainly because it dealt with issues from earlier books that I was unaware of because I had not yet read them.King and Maxwell have moved from Wrightsburg to Washington to grow their private investigation business but times are tough. Maxwell is experiencing emotional difficulties which appear to have originated from their last case. Whilst she receives treatment King is asked to investigate a mysterious death in Virginia within a research facility.It turns out that the facility is close to a secret CIA facility and local police, FBI and CIA are also involved. Further deaths occur and King himself survives an attempt on his life. Whilst this is happening a not yet recovered Maxwell arrives bringing her own bull in a china shop expertise to the affair.In a much better read from my first time the story cracks on at a remarkable pace culminating in a startling climax. Over the top perhaps but it does show that power corrupted can and is a forceful weapon with those with least access to it being the biggest victims.

It’s been a while since I read a King and Maxwell book so it took me a little bit of time to get into this one as it wasn’t initially grabbing me but once the action all centred in on Babbage Town and Camp Peary it really started to motor along and I really enjoyed it by the end. I liked the coding and conspiracy angle linking back to events in history.

What can I say about this book except READ it...it's brilliant, well thought out, executed to perfection and keeps you guessing till the end.Involving quantum computers, a new thing for the future where a lot of numbers are being decoded by brilliantly minded scientists at a CIA/FBI facility in Virginia, USA which could have a devastating impact on the world as we know it today. These codes are much like the codes used in WW11 by the Germans which were cracked at Bletchley Park thus bringing an end to the war much sooner than expected. I was fortunate enough to have visited Bletchley a few months back and had to marvel at the many men and women who worked there during the war, their absolute commitment, hard work and sacrifice had a massive effect on what they did. Some of the girls were only 19 years old at the time and highly intelligent.The story starts with Michelle who unfortunately starts to loose her grip after their last job, and becomes almost suicidal which confuses and concerns Sean. He manages to get her a place in an intuition where she can have therapy but as some of you know THAT is NOT what Michelle wants or thinks she needs!Sean gets her the best help but she rebels against this and heads off to help Sean who has taken a job from Joan Dillinger so that he can earn enough money to pay for Michelle's care.The story is long and very involved but secrets from Michelle's past come to the fore and we get a glimpse in to her younger life which explains in part why she is like she is...this is fascinating stuff!I like to think there is more to Sean and Michelle's relationship than Baldacci has thus far revealed so I am hoping that it develops further along the romantic lines. I love them both too much not to want that NOT to happen.Thank you David for one of the best reads I have read in a while apart from King and Maxwell so you have scored many points from me.Highly recommended, if I could have given it 10 stars I would have!!

the names of the characters - I would have given it 4* but knocked one off for the character names being so stupid.OK, the theme is "genius" and a bunch of (as it turns out) questionable people of enormous intellect working on a quantum computer. Fair enough. Then we come across this character called "Champ Pollion". I mean, what? Champ Pollion? Do me a favour........... and then we get to Monk Turing............... excuse me?As it happens, I realised as I read it that this was a game the author was playing - Champollion was a French scholar who first deciphered Egyptian heiroglyphs. So, fair enough. A genius. Turing, of course, the maths genius who worked on deciphering the Enigma codes in WW2. And that left someone called Len Rivest; what did he do? A quick meeting with that nice Mr Google informs that Ron Rivest was one of the three cryptologists who developed the RSA encryption algorithm. Fair enough.Maybe it's just me but I found the Champ Pollion thing so excruciatingly silly it was off-putting right the way through the book. Without wanting to give too much away, the Turing character has evidently been flitting round here there and everywhere researching his namesake (he is, of course, related!) and has found his way into a top-secret CIA installation across the river from the place where the computer research is going on. Unsurprisingly, he turns up dead - enter King and Maxwell to investigate.Turing's left a deeply strange pre-pubescent daughter who's a wizard of the piano keyboard and at improvisation of music. She also delights in a strange name - Vigenere, mercifully abbreviated to Viggi - and weaves in and out of the story, playing music to people if she likes them and sulking if she doesn't.Overall, some good story ideas, some preposterous ones, but an easy read with good twists and turns. Not bad at all. The plot partnership of King and Maxwell is developing nicely and is a backdrop to the story here even as Baldacci continues the refuse them the, ah, out-of-hours mutual release (if you follow my drift) each of them craves. Especially Maxwell. King must be a saint.If you like Baldacci's output you'll find little to quibble about here. Except maybe the names, of course!

I really enjoyed reading this. Sean and Michelle are an excellent team and foils for each other. The mysteries are as always interesting keeping you guessing. All the characters well developed. They have faults and all make mistakes, but you hope the good guys will win through.I liked the link to Babbage and Turing, for once the English weren't the bad guys (excluding the references to the American War of Independence). It's always fascinating to think how some people's minds are wired to work and can solve the world's puzzles and how mine isn't able to, paraphrasing Horatio in the book.This was surprisingly poorly edited for a published book. Normally I can skip over errors, especially in self published books, but there were simple things like the word 'He' which kept popping up incorrectly in place of other words, an example, 'he had them He on the deck...' also r and n used instead of intended m's, even full stops missing. Silly but noticeable - shame on you Pan books.However I really enjoyed reading it, Maxwell and King are a winning combination.For anyone to read that like a good mystery/detective story that isn't too complicated to understand and is entertaining.