Guilty by David Baldacci (2015)

The fourth Will Robie story. When I started reading it I thought I had read it before, as I remember Robie taking his assassin's shot and also hitting a little girl behind the intended target. But it must have been one of those first chapter introductions at the end of a previous book to get you hooked, because the rest was new territory. 

This opening event throws Robie off his game and he is told to take some time off to get his shit together and oh yes, his father has been arrested for murder, so he might want to go down to Cantrell, Mississippi to check up on him, though he hasn't been home nor seen his father for over 20 years. Jessica Reel, who is often his partner, is out somewhere on assignment, so he doesn't have the one person that understands him around to talk to.

The plot thickens quickly, as it usually does in Baldacci stories and the body count piles up.Officially it is a young woman who was the first to be murdered, then the guy who supposedly killed her that the elder Robie is in jail for. But hen we have bad guys from casinos, and Jessica Reel shows up and it is like a combat zone. I am glad I didn't read the Amazon reviews before I read this, as I just let the plot twists and turns grab me and spit me out at the end, like in a giant water slide. Most people found them unbelievable and I have to admit I had a few places where it was a bit much. 

We do get Robie's back story - successful high school athlete with a strict military father who beat him and never thought to praise his son. I like that Robie visits his old teammate Billy, who is dying of cancer, though I didn't get how he recognized Billy's son, if he hasn't been back home at all. And then we find he had the love of his life in Laura, out of his league, but they were high school sweethearts and she was going to leave town with him, when he left. But she never showed up and he thought that she just changed her mind. He had written and called a lot afterwards, but never got to talk to her. This is the one that sounded off to me from the start. One does have to suspect that the letters and phone messages were never received. Robie persevere's in everything else, why not here. Anyway, a lot of characters from both his past and new ones. The usual sympathetic female cop in Taggert, the beautiful Victoria that has married his dad and her son Ty, the sleazy Clancy's etc. But one gets a glimpse in what poverty can bring people to (the three daughters of the preacher) or how important casino jobs are to an area like this. Still an engaging read for me.