David Baldacci

David Baldacci (born 5 August 1960 in Richmond, Virginia) is an American thriller writer and former lawyer whose first novel, Absolute Power (1996), was filmed in 1997 with Clint Eastwood.

He studied political science at Virginia Commonwealth University and law at the University of Virginia, then practised law in Washington, D.C., for nine years. Absolute Power, published by Warner Books in 1996 after about three years of writing, tells of a burglar who witnesses a crime involving the US president; it was filmed in 1997 with Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman. He has since built a series of recurring characters, among them Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, the Camel Club, the assassin Will Robie, John Puller, Atlee Pine and Amos Decker, introduced in Memory Man (2015), as well as the more recent 6:20 Man books. His novels have been published in more than 45 languages and over 80 countries, with worldwide sales put at more than 150 million copies as of December 2024. With his wife, Michelle, he founded the Wish You Well Foundation, which funds adult literacy programmes in the United States.

For collectors

The Warner Books first edition of Absolute Power (1996) is his first book and the starting point for a Baldacci collection. Memory Man (2015) is the first Amos Decker novel.