The Last Mile

In bestseller Baldacci’s so-so sequel to 2015’s Memory Man, the FBI persuades Amos Decker—a former professional football player, whose career-ending injury left him with some unusual abilities, including an almost perfect memory—to join a new unit that combines special agents and “civilians with special skills” to reopen select cold cases. Decker advocates for a case that appears resolved. Former college football standout Melvin Mars is reprieved minutes from his execution after another convict on death row, Charles Montgomery, confesses to murdering Mars’s parents in their Texas home more than 20 years earlier. Decker feels an affinity for Mars, since the two played against each other once, and Decker also lost family members to a killer. His strong feelings prevail, and his unit looks into whether Montgomery is being truthful and why he waited so long to come forward. Despite his extra brain power, Decker doesn’t leave much of an impression. This entry will work best for readers with a taste for improbable resolutions. Agent: Aaron Priest, Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency. (Apr.)