Author David Baldacci delivers another riveting chapter in Atlee Pine's journey to learn what really happened to her twin sister so many years ago. As the story opens, stress causes Atlee to explode, resulting in a mandatory vacation away from her official duties as an FBI agent.

She heads to her hometown in Georgia, accompanied by her dedicated assistant, Carol, determined to investigate and, hopefully, solve the mystery of Mercy's disappearance. She finds her family home even more dilapidated than she remembers it, and inhabited by a squatter, Cyrus Tanner, who permits them to look around. Revisiting the bedroom from which Mercy was abducted causes memories to flood back to Atlee, but not necessarily in the way she expected. In fact, every aspect of her visit is surprising, as she meets people who knew her parents and were on the scene of the crime on that horrid night. She learns their perspectives and hears details that her parents never shared with her. For instance, from local citizens she learns that her parents abruptly left town in the middle of the night, but not why they were in such a hurry to leave. She also discovers that her father was the prime suspect in her sister's disappearance.

Quickly, Atlee realizes that before embarking on her trip, she was "not prepared well for what this trip might do to her emotionally, when preparation had been key for everything she had done in her life." Baldacci compellingly and authentically draws readers further into Atlee's inner turmoil and guilt -- the guilt of having survived without ever knowing what happened to Mercy after she was dragged from that bedroom so long ago.


Of course, Atlee can't help but be drawn into the search for a killer, even though she is not in the area in an official capacity. Serial killers don't tend to operate in small American towns, causing Carol to wonder if it's a coincidence that dead body turns up the day after she and Atlee arrived. Her concern causes Atlee to ponder whether her arrival triggered the killing because the two crimes are somehow connected. But it is far from apparent how the murder of a woman whose body is staged wearing a bridal veil, followed by the murder of a man dressed in a tuxedo with a top hat on his stomach and a corsage on his jacket could possibly be tied to Mercy's kidnapping.

The action never slows as Baldacci injects numerous complications into Atlee's investigations while exploring her deepening understanding of the myriad ways in which the events that transpired early in her life have shaped her personality and the ways in which she interacts with others. As she uncovers the truth about her parents' backgrounds, she laments that she went to Georgia to find out what happened to her sister. But in addition, "I have to try to figure out who my parents really were." Atlee appreciates at a deeper, visceral level that she has been alone ever since the night Mercy disappeared, and that she has "never felt that comfort of reassurance again. That sort of connection perhaps came only once in a lifetime. And maybe that's why I find it so hard to connect with anyone else."

Baldacci incorporates another intriguing cast of supporting characters, as well as shocking plot twists, making A Minute to Midnight a clever mystery, as he simultaneously relates Atlee's personal story with compassion and tenderness.

But he also reveals a huge surprise at the end, complete with a cliffhanger that leads to the third volume. Hopefully, soon.