It started with One Good Deed:
And followed with A Gambling Man:
As always, we suggest you read them in order.
The descriptions after the plot are the penultimate strongest point in Dream Town.
"Archer could see why she was a star. The camera would love the angles of her face, the way her eyes widened and then brightened like precious stone before they tapered back to a dull glow that was even more interesting and perhaps telling of what she was thinking, and of a possible vulnerability. And the way her lips quivered just so." (p. 129)
We love the classic movie references in here like Nancy Sinatra's dad (thanks Nancy for following us on Twitter!) High Noon and Gary Cooper and if you are a fan of Old Hollywood we absolutely endorse the nonfiction: #ReadThis #MyPlaceIntheSun by @officialgsjr @KentuckyPress #GeorgeStevensJr Life in the Golden Age of Hollywood and Washington Highly Recommended
Back to Baldacci Archer fiction! The pace of the book is phenomenal and snappy. Weighing in at nearly 400 pages, Dream Town is your next fabulous vacation day on the beach without any technology and just the uberpleasant turning of the page listening to the waves and luxuriating in the tale brought forth by the legendary Baldacci pen. He'll take you away and you won't mind and we promise you you'll be back in time.
We applaud in particular the snappy stylistic dialogue between characters which is so attractive and elevating. We advise you to be surrounded by high quality food (see our recommendations there too) so you aren't too tortured by the amazing descriptions of rare steaks, oceans of mushrooms and mountains of fried onion rings (p.25). We love the globe bar idea (p. 46) and think it would also work well as an apple...you know, the big one.
This is all California dreaming in the setting, and we won't give away the plotline too much but you know there is murder and intrigue in barrels. We don't feel we are at Liberty to disclose too much and ruin it for you and of course Liberty Callahan who sounds like such a nice Irish girl takes the book stage here. Relationships are central to this plot...so see if you can figure out who is connected to whom and why!
We cried on page 168 because the Waldorf is a shambles in reality now. And it's no longer American much to our dismay. Avid readers remember our highly popular reviews of The Bull and Bear, Peacock Alley and Oscar's, all now part of history. We LOVE the Hemingway reference on page 224 and he is accurate in saying Hemingway's in Cuba as we understand he loved it there. (...and we've loved that guy too.) Baldacci has impeccable taste and best of all he mentions our absolute favorite, F. Scott Fitzgerald on p. 274...we wonder if the Hershey bar part is true. Though everyone has a different schedule in life which they say at the end, Dream Town should be part of everyone's schedule.
Relax in purebred nostalgia: "He waited until seven on the dot and ordered a Gibson with the trio of onions" (p. 281). Smuggling in Malibu...what's happening on that beach? What should be happening on YOUR BEACH is you reading this.
Dream Town is Highly Recommended by Whom You Know.
READ THIS.
David Baldacci continues his historical Aloysius Archer series with DREAM TOWN (April 19, 2022), with the WWII vet and private investigator heading to Los Angeles and the heart of Hollywood, the city where dreams are made and shattered. DREAM TOWN is Baldacci at his best—Kirkus has given the novel a starred review, saying “Baldacci paints a vivid picture… and nails the noir.” Publishers Weekly raves that David’s “solid prose nicely evokes the traditional hard-boiled whodunit... Raymond Chandler fans will be entertained.” It’s the eve of 1953, and Archer is in Los Angeles to ring in the New Year with an old friend, aspiring actress Liberty Callahan, when their evening is interrupted by Eleanor Lamb, a screenwriter in dire straits. After a series of increasingly chilling events, Eleanor fears that her life is in danger. Archer suspects that Eleanor knows more than she is saying, but before he can officially take on her case, a dead body turns up inside of Eleanor’s home… and Eleanor herself disappears. Missing client or not, Archer is set on finding both the murderer and Eleanor, so he launches an investigation that will take him from mob-ridden Las Vegas to the glamorous world of Hollywood to the darkest corners of Los Angeles—a city in which beautiful faces are attached to cutthroat schemers, where the cops can be more corrupt than the criminals, and where the powerful people responsible for his client’s disappearance will kill without hesitation if they catch Archer on their trail.
