David Baldacci created a very intriguing and tragic protagonist in Amos Decker. In his first Decker novel, The Memory Man (2015), he introduced a man with who cannot forget anything. This kind of total recall is more a curse than a blessing, particularly because Decker discovered the brutally slashed corpses of his wife, daughter and brother-in-law in the book, and is unable to get the gory sight of his mind.

Years earlier, as a young football player, Decker had been blindsided in his first game and got hit on the head so violently that he was declared dead. When he was revived, something had happened inside his brain that made him “an acquired savant with hyperthymesia and synesthesia abilities.” Which in simple terms means he never forgets anything, even if he wants to, and sees emotions in colour.

After he recovers, he goes on to become a cop, and because he has an exceptional brain, makes for a very good investigator. The slaughter of his family shatters him to the extent that he almost takes his own life, and is prevented from pulling the trigger by his cop friends who arrive at the scene of the crime. The shock unravels him—he gives up his job, loses his home and car, becomes a recluse, making a sparse living as a private eye. Eventually, he is pulled out of that black hole and inducted into the FBI to handle cold cases.

In Book 2, The Last Mile, Decker gets Melvin Mars out of prison, where he was a death row prisoner for twenty years, incarcerated for a crime he did not commit—the murder of his parents. A grateful Mars becomes Decker’s friend for life.

Now the third book in the series—The Fix—is out, and it is as thrilling, if not more, that the earlier two books. In Book 3, Decker, with his best friend and supporter Alex Jamison, along with his FBI buddies Ross Bogart and Ted Milligan is settling into a job he likes, even though his past trauma never leaves him.

One day, he is witness to what seems like a random killing, right outside the Hoover Building—the FBI headquarters. Walt Dabney, a prosperous businessman and family man, shoots Anne Berkshire, for no apparent reason and then shoots himself. The woman he killed was a schoolteacher and social worker with no connection to Dabney. But she also seemed to lead a double life, with immense wealth and no discernible source of income.

Dabney’s wife Ellie and four daughters are devastated by the course of events and have no answers to the cops’ questions. They simply cannot make sense of what Dabney did—a devoted husband and loving father-- who had no reason to wreck his life.

Decker and Jamison start investigating the baffling case and with each chapter a new layer unravels. There is a sinister plan afoot, that involves espionage, spying and terrorism.

Meanwhile, the enigmatic Harper Brown and agent of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) joins the investigation, starts on the wrong foot with Decker and gets Jamison’s hackles up. Decker now shares an apartment with Jamison, in a building owned by Melvin Mars. He drops into this book to help with the complicated and frustrating case.

Decker’s incredible memory does not really come into play till the explosive climax and the surprising twist, when all the tiny pieces of the jigsaw puzzle finally come together. The Fix is a very enjoyable book, with dashes of humour and also a bit of romance. If Decker is a fascinating hero, Mars and Jamison make for a wonderful team of supporters, offering unconditional friendship to the lone ranger.

The Fix
By David Baldacci
Published by Pan MacMillan
Pages: 432