Total Control by David Baldacci

From the Publisher

Sidney Archer has the world. A husband she loves. A job at which she excels, and a cherished young daughter. Then, as a plane plummets into the Virginia countryside, everything changes. And suddenly there is no one whom Sidney Archer can trust. Jason Archer is a rising young executive at Triton Global, the world's leading technology conglomerate. Determined to give his family the best of everything, Archer has secretly entered into a deadly game of cat and mouse. He is about to disappear - leaving behind a wife who must sort out his lies from his truths, an aircrash investigation team that wants to know why the plane he was ticketed on suddenly fell from the sky, and a veteran FBI agent who wants to know it all. From Seattle to Washington, D.C., from New Orleans to Maine, the hunt for Jason Archer follows a trail as complex as the world he lived and worked in - a world of enormously powerful computers, a multimillion-dollar takeover deal, titanic financial standoffs, artificial intelligence, and the Internet. With brilliant minds colliding, ruthless men waging battles of intimidation, rainmakers going toe-to-toe with killers, and security specialists making a fortune trying to plug the holes, the startling truth behind Jason Archer's disappearance explodes into a sinister plot with the murder of the country's single most powerful individual. And soon Archer's wife, Sidney, aided by the relentless and sharp-eyed FBI agent Lee Sawyer, will plunge straight into the violence that is leaving behind a trail of dead bodies and shocking, exposed secrets...

Library Journal

With sales of his first novel, Absolute Power (LJ 11/15/95), topping 300,000 copies and a movie version scheduled for release in spring 1997, Baldacci is living high on the hog. In this second effort, a woman seeks the truth about her husband's death in a plane crash.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0446673749
  
• ISBN-13: 9780446673747
• Format: Paperback, 624pp
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Pub. Date: December 1996
• Sales Rank: 252,244

• Table of Contents
• Interviews & Essays
• Forewords & Introductions

Table of Contents

Interviews & Essays

David Baldacci: I love writing, and earning your living doing something you love is wonderful.

David Baldacci: It will be out the early part of 1998.

David Baldacci: Think about why you want to be a writer. If you decide you really like to write, then spend a lot of time learning the craft, and read a lot of good authors.

David Baldacci: If you mean ABSOLUTE POWER, I wasn't anticipating a movie, I was just hoping to get the book published. But I did think Eastwood was a good choice.

David Baldacci: I knew it would be different -- adapting a book to film is very difficult. A number of things have to be cut. Trying to compare the book and the movie really isn't fair because they are such different mediums. I like the book better!

David Baldacci: I work at home so I have to share the computer with my three-year-old daughter.

David Baldacci: A lot is simply imagination, but I do take characteristics of people I know and blend them into characters in the book. The president in ABSOLUTE POWER is not Bill Clinton.

David Baldacci: Thank you!

David Baldacci: Fantasy can be a broad genre. I won't rule it out, I have a lot of interests.

David Baldacci: I was a trial lawyer for five years, and then I did corporate work for about four years.

David Baldacci: John Irving, Ann Tyler, John Updike, Garrison Keillor, Mark Twain.

David Baldacci: It's certainly a possibility. I liked her character a lot, as well as that of Lee Sawyer, so they may appear in future books.

David Baldacci: Thank you very much -- it's a pleasure for me, too!

David Baldacci: He and I know each other, and whenever I'm in Charlottesville I look him up. He's a very nice man.

David Baldacci: My next book is done. It's entitled THE WINNER. I could tell you about it, but then I'd have to...you know the rest.

David Baldacci: Roughly 16 months to two years.

David Baldacci: He won't be in the next book, but he may appear in the future. I really like him.

David Baldacci: There is great pressure on bestselling authors to turn product out. I'm not sure that anyone can maintain high quality at that sort of pace. If it takes me four years to write my next book, then that's what it takes.

David Baldacci: I thought the cast was great, and I thought the adaptation was great. If you forgot the book and considered it only a movie, then it was very entertaining.

David Baldacci: There was one reason for that...and his name is Clint Eastwood. As soon as he signed, I knew the story would build around his character. So, I missed Jack Graham a lot, but I wasn't surprised.

David Baldacci: I think it's both exciting and frightening...as are all new technologies. The upside is terrific, but there are downsides. I enjoy these chats, but I really prefer to meet people face to face. I guess I'm old-fashioned.

David Baldacci: I would agree, but I would add -- make sure you're writing for the right reasons. Then you'll be more likely to finish that book.

David Baldacci: I enjoy music while I'm writing. Everything from classical to Alanis Morissette.

David Baldacci: I grew up with very strong female role models, thus I enjoy writing about women with those characteristics. I don't write about damsels in distress, because I don't know any. My wife is a great sounding board for the female characters.

David Baldacci: I read a lot of books in the thriller genre. I had polished ABSOLUTE POWER to the point where I thought it comparable to the others I had read. As a writer, you run the risk of wanting to edit something forever. But at some point you have to let go.

David Baldacci: It would be impossible to compare them, they're both challenging, and can be very rewarding. My preference is for writing, but I do not regret practicing law.

David Baldacci: I thought it was important that the reader see everything through the burglar's eyes. In that way I was able to get the reader to participate in the story. With that look, chances are they'll enjoy the book a lot more.

David Baldacci: Yes, I was a partner in a firm in Washington. I had been writing for nine years before ABSOLUTE POWER was published. I had been writing for years from ten at night until three in the morning, and working at the same time.

David Baldacci: I was a poli sci major in college, very interested in politics and power. As a lawyer in Washington I got a good dose of it, and I enjoy writing about it.

David Baldacci: Thank you very much; it's good to be an inspiration!

David Baldacci: I do my own research, and I have a person who gathers information for me on some subjects. She's very talented and very hardworking.

David Baldacci: It will probably be spring of 1998.

David Baldacci: I write on and off all during the day. I don't have a set schedule, but I work every day. When I'm not writing, I'm thinking about it.

David Baldacci: I'm trying [laughter]. Sometimes it's not so easy, but I'm not complaining.

David Baldacci: I still have a lot of respect for lawyers and how hard they work. I think the public's perceptions of lawyers is somewhat skewed; they really don't know that much about them or what they do.

David Baldacci: I don't really write courtroom dramas. However, some of the trial strategies were based on personal experiences.

David Baldacci: I've always had a great fear of the slippery slope, so censorship is not something I think is good.

David Baldacci: "The Rockford Files"!

David Baldacci: I am married, and I have two children.

David Baldacci: You may see something other than thrillers down the road. I have a lot of different interests, and there's a lot I want to write about.

David Baldacci: I went to college at VCU, and I went to law school at the University of Virginia.

David Baldacci: I do not use a software product for novels; for screenplays I use a product called Final Draft.

David Baldacci: No. Although she certainly helps with my novels. She has the world's hardest job -- Mom.

David Baldacci: There are about one million lawyers in the U.S. -- in sheer numbers there are probably too many. But if you have a passion for the profession, that shouldn't stop you.

David Baldacci: I didn't. William Goldman did, and I think Bill did a fine job.

David Baldacci: My mother and father. They have a very strong work ethic; they're very honest.

David Baldacci: A very fair comment!

David Baldacci: Yes, I was. With Ed Harris, Clint Eastwood -- had a great time.

David Baldacci: Bill Goldman is a two-time Oscar winning screenwriter -- he didn't need me to guide him at all.

David Baldacci: Me too.

David Baldacci: Losing privacy, yes. And losing personal identities.

David Baldacci: Eighteen. Because at that age they can read anything regardless of what you tell them.

David Baldacci: One can only hope.

David Baldacci: First, I have to come up with a plot that...1) is sustainable as a novel, and...2) is something I'm interested in enough to commit so much time and energy to.

David Baldacci: You have to develop interesting characters -- obviously. Motivations oftentimes are dictated by goals and what values you give the characters.

David Baldacci: Not if you love what you're doing!

David Baldacci: I thank everyone for participating, I enjoyed the questions. Best wishes!

Forewords & Introductions

Total Control opens with an immediate shocker: A plane from Washington bound for Los Angeles explodes and plummets to earth just moments after takeoff. Until the crash, Washington attorney Sidney Archer seemed to have everything going for her: a loving husband, a thriving career, a beautiful daughter. But then her husband Jason's name turns up on the passenger list of the doomed Flight 3223. The FBI seems to think Jason might have been responsible for the crash and not on the plane at all. And then the lies start emerging.

In the hopes of giving his family everything he felt they deserved, Jason Archer entered into a deadly game of cat and mouse, secretly doing business with some extremely dangerous people. Now this high-tech world of hostile takeovers, artificial intelligence, and corporate espionage has forced him to disappear. In an effort to clear Jason's name and recover the family the plane crash destroyed, Sidney, with the help of FBI agent Lee Sawyer, plunges into the center of her husband's secret life, uncovering a sinister plot involving the murder of the country's most powerful individual, and putting her own life and that of her young daughter at stake.

This gripping page-turner, which vividly depicts the dark heart of the country's political and business affairs, proves again that David Baldacci is among the brightest new lights in the thriller scene.