An introduction to the Camel Club, a group of conspiracy theorists led by the mysterious Oliver Stone who see a murder and get led into a major attempt against the US president. A monster book nearly 700 pages and I found the first 150-200 pages very slow in the set-up to the main story

I'm just blabbering about this read: - how insignificant we are. Why fight/appose/criticize/object to anything when we're simply not important? Depressing;- some Americans will approve of the criticism in the book, other will be furious and frustrated;- this book proves a point. How democracy is used as a weapon to control countries, a well done and straightforward explanation; sadly true as well;- a cliffhanger ending; don't want to indulge in the series, so I'm unhappy;- I liked, as in really

I feel cheated that I even had to assign a single star to this pathetic excuse for a book. Let me describe this book like this... this is the kind of book that comes in only two forms - paperback and audio. It's excrement smeared on paper and then bound and placed in airport bookstore shelves. It's your basic Tom Clancy bite off of the terrorist plot to bring down the free world. The author has watched a couple of National Geographic Videos, maybe had lunch with about three or four guys who used...

The Camel Club is comprised of a group of men who are sort of a counter culture of their own after having served the country in some form or fashion, enough to be suspicious of the publicly fed information from the government. They lead an odd existence, each with unique quirks and eccentricities, and meet each month to compare notes on what they're hearing from various inside sources. On one of these evenings, they unfortunately become witnesses to a stunning event that puts them in the middle

Across the street from the White House, tells a story of a man, dead and alive, Oliver Stone. Old and homeless, he and a small group of friends known as The Camel Club, witness a murder on Roosevelt Island. I read this book many years ago, but for the life of me, I could not remember very much of it. Except for the fact that Oliver Stone lived homeless across the street from the White house and was a mysterious old man. Now that I have re-read this first novel in the series, scenes and characte...

Updating just to correct some typos and grammatical problems. Well....here I go. I can't really recommend this one. You know there are books by Mr. Baldacci that I enjoy greatly. I have noted before that he can be...that's "can be" one of those authors who can get very heavy handed about their political beliefs. I find that the case here. He pretty much had me feeling he was really (really) mostly interested in making a political point. This is obviously a point to be agreed or disagreed on as

Some people follow sports teams, other people follow actors or rock bands. But me, I follow authors. And while some people fantasize about celebrities they’d like to dine with, I have a list of rock star authors I dream of interviewing.Recently, one of my dreams came true when David Baldacci agreed to an email interview with me. Upon hearing the news, my impulse was to jump and kick in a manner my legs haven’t experienced since the late 1980s, when I was a high school cheerleader. I quickly disc...

David Baldacci's descriptive style of writing is worth reading. I like the way he puts all the events at bay.As being a big fan of conspiracy theories, I had high expectations of The Camel Club. Tom Hemingway deserves more as a protagonist than a supporting role. I'm glad David did justice with Tom Hemingway's martial arts and did not kill him by an ex-agent turned shooter.Carter gray's assumed conviction of Tom Hemingway for doing the plot is a typical David Baldacci thing. Everything was befor...

Same fun, eccentric characters from Baldacci's The Collectors, however, this book came first. Intricate plot, however, a few characters are used as mouthpieces to give long dissertations on the peaceful nature of Islam and the greed of Americans. Though his points may or may not be valid, it was delivered heavy-handedly and got tiresome. After all, I'm reading a novel, not a slanted history book on Middle East politics.Aside from that, though, I enjoyed the story and the main characters. I'll re...

2.0 stars. Probably would have given this 3 stars except for my extreme annoyance with the "heavy handed" political tone of the book. As far as I can tell from the authors depictions in the story, America is responsible for ALL of the evil in the world (especially in the Middle East), 9/11 was a justified response to American foreign policy and Americans are ignorant and racist. Great, thanks for that, now can we get on with the story. Oh, that is the story. Terrific!!!Apart from the tone, this

The Camel Club - a rag tag team of friends led by the "past-less" Oliver Stone - is a strangely capable group who's purpose is to discover the truth about what's really going on in the government. When they stumbles upon a murder that smells of corruption - it becomes a lethal race to discover the murderers' identities and silence them before the Camel Club is the one to get silenced.The Camel Club combines mystery, suspense, and action in a moderately paced adult read. Readers should be aware t...

I’m so glad that I stuck with this book and finished it! It felt very daunting in the beginning. There were so many characters being introduced, at least for the first 100 pages. Then there was a deep background for most of them. I almost gave up on it. Then about 250 pages in, the story took hold and I could not put it down! I’m not much for conspiracy theories, which is the inspiration for the Camel Club, but for me this is a story of how government typically works. I really enjoyed this group...

Extremely badI read this book because it was chosen by my book club - I don't think I would have bothered to finish it otherwise.The plot is ridiculous and lunges around especially towards the end - it felt like a badly written James Bond movie. The nuclear strike was averted by just 1 second - that sort of timing is not dramatic - it's just annoying. The characterisation was quite two dimensional and, in the case of Hemingway, quite nauseating - his accomplishments are just too unbelievable - s...

Good read. Oliver Stone aka John Carr. Middle East history: Replacing dictatorships that America helped foster and support. In most cases the democracies coming to power hate America more than the dictators they replaced. We entered Iraq not understanding its history or culture. Great Britain took Mesopotamia and artificially created a country, Iraq. Its population is composed of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds & dozens of other groups that are not know to get along. One cannot “bomb” people into a democ...

5 Stars. Enjoyable. We watch a conspiracy coming to light through two perspectives. First through our own eyes. Plus we see things happening through the eyes of the four disparate members of the Camel Club. I am still uncertain of the reason for that name, but they are a group of fringe eccentrics in the Washington area led by "Oliver Stone." The club's purpose? To ferret out conspiracies by, or against, the American government. It is amazing what they can discern from miscellaneous pieces of in...

5 solid and thrilling stars.In the first book of the Camel Club series, we get introduced to the Camel Club, a group of conspiracy theorists whose aim is to uncover corruption in the upper reaches of the US government. This group is headed by Oliver Stone, whose real name is John Carr and who was a former CIA assassin. The Other members are Reuben Rhodes, a former military spy, Caleb Shaw, who works in the Library of Congress and Milton Farb, who was a child prodigy and now a web designer.The Bo...

How wrong can you be. This started ok. I wondered why the treatise on the nature of Islam, was prepared to accept that somehow the relevance of that would make itself apparent.Wrong again 20% read and starting to find it tiresome, but this was an author recommended by a friend so I ploughed on. What a lot of characters and acronyms and superheros and who the hell is this book written for? Seems to me the target audience is an adolescent youth the author is hoping to 'educate' Yet I'm thinking it...

Read the review of the entire Camel Club series at my my blogThe Camel Club has an interesting premise in the action thriller genre. It consists of four washed up, eccentric senior gentlemen who want to make the world a better place. This premise intrigued me and made me pick up this book. Now, I have read Baldacci's Will Robie before and I liked that series. The review of the series is available here. The Camel Club is different since it does not rely on one individual to move the plot along th...

Baldacci wrote this in 2005 but is still a good read. The plot, as told by four old friends, is complex but very believable. At some points, the story seems a little drawn out, but overall, I enjoyed it. The shadows of current politics is chilling.

Four societal misfits and conspiracy theorists living in the Washington DC area have banded together to form what they refer to as the Camel Club. Led by Oliver Stone, a 60+ year old man with a mysterious past, they find themselves accidentally witnessing a murder. That launches them into an adventure beyond their wildest expectations involving a complex and bizarre terrorist plot.I’ve been a David Baldacci fan since I read Absolute Power. His books don’t always quite live up to that one in my m...