Redemption is another compelling installment in the Amos Decker series featuring familiar characters from acclaimed author David Baldacci.

Detective Amos Decker is known as the "Memory Man" because he has hyperthymesia -- the ability to remember everything and the inability to forget anything. He suffered a traumatic brain injury as a young professional football player. When he emerged from a coma, he found that, in addition to having attained perfect recall, his personality was altered. Suddenly, he had trouble expressing emotion and dealing with people. Additionally, the injury caused him to have synthesthesia. He sees colors associated with things like death and numbers. Decker also sustained the most devastating loss imaginable -- the murder of his wife and young daughter. As his partner, Alex Jamison, puts it, Decker "survives with more guilt on his shoulders than any person has a right to bear."

Hawkins' appearance further complicates Decker's life, causing him to question his judgment, motivations, and the decisions he made when he handled his very first case as a homicide detective. The case seemed simple at the time. Fingerprints and other forensic details placed Hawkins at the scene of the murders. Decker never questioned the conclusions to which the evidence appeared to clearly point.

But now, in light of Hawkins' insistence that he was wrongfully convicted and his subsequent murder, Decker questions whether he was "so eager to get a conviction on my first homicide investigation that it didn't strike me as odd" that Hawkins would have committed the crime in the way Decker believed at the time. Worse, Hawkins had never previously been in trouble with the law. Decker was so convinced by the forensic evidence that he never questioned that Hawkins could go from "never having a parking ticket to four homicides [which] is like going from hopping over a rain puddle to leaping across the Grand Canyon. It should have set off warning bells." But it didn't.

Baldacci takes a determined Decker on a dangerous journey to the truth in an intricately and meticulously plotted, and deeply moving adventure that keeps readers guessing right up to the very end. Along the way, Baldacci reveals the emotional torment that Decker experiences at the prospect that he could have been responsible for sending an innocent man to prison. Decker is highly principled and committed to justice. Some members of local law enforcement perceive his commitment to solving the case as encroaching on their authority and jurisdiction. But Decker will not be dissuaded, noting that "[f]inding killers is my only job. Wherever they might be."

In true Baldacci style, Decker encounters a plethora of quirky and entertaining supporting characters. And plenty of danger. Redemption is a fast-paced, and thoroughly engaging thriller, as relentless in its unexpected plot twists and surprising developments as Decker is in his quest to discover the identity of the real killers. As the number of dead bodies rises, so does Decker's consternation, along with the story's dramatic tension. Decker returns to places he never thought he would see again and confronts old demons in his quest for the truth and redemption for the mistakes that were made so many years ago. Will he find it? Learning the answer to that question is what makes Redemption so intriguing and entertaining.