Book Talk: Baldacci, ‘Nash Falls’

David Baldacci has written more than fifty best-selling mystery novels. I think that I’ve read all of them. This one is different. Like his other thrillers, Nash Falls (2025, 424 pages in hardback format) has interesting characters, dastardly subplots, and lots of tension. And yet, it’s different.

The book opens with the funeral for Tiberius Nash’s funeral. Ty, to his friends, had been a soldier’s soldier during the Vietnam War. He had the medals, commendations, and purple hearts to prove it. So, the funeral should have been a solemn affair. However, his old Army buddy, Shock, got up to give a little speech. All his remarks were aimed at Ty’s son, Walter, and none of them were complimentary. In fact, Shock berated Walter for not being the kind of man that his father was or that his father had hoped his son would be.

However, Walter was very successful in the field that he chose: business. He was the head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he was a superstar. Year after year, his brilliance in choosing the right companies and properties to acquire had earned many millions for the company, and in return he pulled down a very good salary and bonuses to support his wife, Judith, and their 18-year-old daughter, Maggie.