Long Road To Mercy/David Baldacci/404 pgs

Best selling thriller/suspense writer David Baldacci introduces readers to a new character that promises to be a favorite.  We meet Atlee Pine who is an FBI agent in a one-agent office in Arizona.

As a young child, a man entered the bedroom of six-year olds Atlee and her twin sister, Mercy.  This man terrorized the girls, hitting Atlee and chanting a rhyme to choose between the two girls.  In the end, the man left with Mercy leaving Atlee devastated.

Now, as an FBI agent, Pine is charged with solving a disappearance of a tourist from a Grand Canyon mule tour.  Typically the tours take two days with an overnight stay at the bottom of the canyon and the return trip the following day.  But, one of the tourists disappeared and a mule was found dead in the canyon.  Even more disturbing was the mule had been mutilated and letters carved in its side.  

As Pine’s investigation progressed, she realized that there was more than just a missing tourist and a mutilated mule.  She discovered possible ties to Russia and China and that national security was in the balance.  Even more devastating she learned that there was a nuclear bomb hidden somewhere in the Grand Canyon.  A good suspense thriller worth reading.