Memory Man

I'm sure I must have read something by prolific bestselling author David Baldacci before, but don't seem to have posted anything. This book introduces a new series featuring Amos Decker. Decker still lives in Burlington, Vermont, where he was a star on the high school football team...the only one to ever get the chance to go pro. On his first outing as an NFL rookie, however, he is so savagely struck by an opponent's helmet that he loses consciousness, suffers several broken bones, and wakes up with a different brain. The trauma has caused him to remember every detail of anything he hears, sees, or experiences (hyperthymesia) and  to see colored numbers connected to certain events (synesthesia), becoming what is called an acquired savant. He goes to an institute that studies such mental anomalies as a way to help himself cope with his altered brain. Eventually he returns to Burlington, joins the police force and puts his perfect memory to work solving crimes as a detective. 

But then his world is knocked off its axis once again when he comes home one night to find his brother-in-law, his wife, and his daughter all brutally murdered. The killer is never found. And Decker cannot forget a single detail of what he saw, so he starts drinking to try and forget, which shortly ends his police career, and ultimately he becomes homeless. A year and half later, he has pulled himself together sufficiently to start taking on small jobs as a private investigator and earns enough to live in the Residence Inn. Seemingly out of the blue, a man walks into the police station and claims to be responsible for the murders of Decker's family, claiming that Decker disrespected him in a grocery store encounter. But Decker has no memory of the man. Then a horrific mass shooting occurs at the local high school and clues start to connect the earlier murders to the current perpetrator. Decker is brought in, first by the local police and then by the FBI, to try and help solve the crimes. Decker hooks back up with his former partner at the police department, veteran detective Mary Lancaster, and, against his better judgement, with a local newspaper reporter. However, everyone who comes close to Decker becomes a target for the killer; it's clear this is very personal. It's just that Decker cannot remember anyone he pissed off so badly that they would undertake such savage revenge. This book will keep you guessing until the end.

The Washington Post calls "this novel a master class on the bestseller because of its fast-moving narrative, the originality of its hero and its irresistible plot." Kirkus concludes that "Although the crimes and their perpetrators are far-fetched, readers will want to see Decker back on the printed page again and again."