David Baldacci’s Amos Decker Books in Order
Amos Decker is an FBI investigator with a rather unconventional advantage to crime solving, making him the perfect star of a series created by David Baldacci, the bestselling author of multiple thriller books and suspense series. There are six riveting books (and counting!) featuring Amos Decker, and we recommend reading them in order if you enjoy gleaning details about Decker’s backstory and you want to follow his personal journey alongside the mysteries he solves. To make things easy for you, here’s your guide on where to start with the Amos Decker books!
In the series starter, readers are introduced to Amos Decker, a former NFL player who was sidelined after a head injury with the most unusual side effect: a perfect photographic memory. Decker finds work as a police detective, and for years his memory is an asset...but his world is shattered when he returns home one night and discovers his wife, daughter, and brother-in-law murdered. Devastated, Decker's life falls apart and he quits his job as the killer goes unpunished, but a year later a man confesses to the murders, and Decker is brought in to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Amos Decker is now working with the FBI when he encounters a mystery that reminds him of his own life: Melvin Mars is on death row for killing his parents years ago, but just before his execution, someone else comes forward and confesses to the crimes. It's credible enough that Mars is released, and Decker is suspicious. Who would want Mars to go free, and why now? What other secrets might he be hiding?
Amos Decker is shocked when he witnesses a crime right outside FBI headquarters: a man kills a woman on a busy sidewalk, execution style, before turning the gun on himself. As Decker replays the incident in his head and looks into the case, it only gets more and more puzzling. The victim and the shooter aren't connected at all, and there's no motive. Then the Defense Intelligence Agency gets involved and Decker is ordered to stand down, but rather than step back, Decker begins working with the DIA to solve this case, which has higher stakes than anyone realizes.
Amos Decker and his FBI colleague Alex Jamison are in the rust belt town of Baronville visiting Alex's family when they're made aware of a strange and sinister strong or murders that have rocked the town. Four people are dead with obscure Bible verses and other unsettling objects. Then Decker walks straight into a double murder scene himself, and the killings get far too close for comfort. As he tries to figure out who is behind these horrifying deaths, Decker will find that their impact extends fay beyond Baronville.
Decker revisits to his past when he visits his hometown of Burlington, OH and encounters Meryl Hawkins, the very first criminal that Decker saw behind bars. Hawkins claims that Decker got it all wrong, and he's been innocent the whole time. He asks Decker to clear his name before he dies of cancer, but Decker refuses, certain he was right all those years ago. Then, Hawkins is found murdered, and Decker begins to rethink his position.
Amos Decker and Alex Jamison are called to London, North Dakota, a town that has undergone massive change recently thanks to the fracking boom. They must investigate the murder of a young woman who has been dumped in the open, and her body expertly autopsied. As they dig deeper, they discover that by day she was a religious teacher, and by night she worked as a sex worker. And that's just the beginning of this strange case, set in a town where both oil and crime are booming.
When Amos Decker is called to South Florida to investigate a double homicide, the case appears straightforward: A federal judge and her bodyguard have been found dead, the judge’s face sporting a blindfold with two eye holes crudely cut out, a clear sign that she’d made one too many enemies over her years on the bench.
What at first seems cut and dry is anything but: Not only did the judge have more enemies than Decker can count—from violent gang members, drug dealers, and smugglers to a resentful ex-husband—but the bodyguard presents additional conundrums that muddy the waters even further. Who was the real target in this vicious attack?
Meanwhile, Decker must contend with a series of unsettling changes, including a new partner—Special Agent Frederica “Freddie” White—and a devastating event that brings Decker’s own tragic past back to the present . . . and forces him to reckon with his future. As potential witnesses start disappearing, Decker and White are inexorably pulled down a twisted tunnel of secrets, crimes, and scandal—at the end of which lies Decker’s deadliest threat yet.
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