David Baldacci is a veteran mystery writer, but the Walter Nash series is brand new. I was not one of his faithful readers, but I wasn’t sure why, exactly; perhaps in the past, I’d tried picking up one of his books, become distracted by something else, and not gone back to it. So when I was approached by NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing to read and review the first book in this series, I welcomed the opportunity. My thanks go to them even though I didn’t come away enthralled.

Our premise is this: Walter Nash is a high placed executive. He’s courteous and loving, and he works way too many hours at Sybaritic Investments. However, following his father’s funeral, Nash is approached by the FBI. Unbeknownst to him, Sybaritic serves as a money launderer. There’s a lot of money involved. Nash can work with the FBI to expose the two top criminals—his boss, Rhett, and his boss’s boss, Victoria Steers, who heads an international criminal syndicate. Or, he can go down with the ship after the Feds move in, and that will mean a great deal of jail time.

This story reads like the fever dream of a nerdy guy that wishes he were a mean, lean fighting machine. Good ole Walt would never commit an act of violence of any kind, but now, gosh, shucks, he just has to. He gets a new name, is sent out to train himself in martial arts and every other sort of physical badassery; his head is shaved, and it and nearly every other part of his physique is covered in tattoos. The new Walt is bad, bad, bad, and darn, isn’t this fun?

Meanwhile, let’s look at the female characters in this tale. His daughter, whom he loved but I did not—entitled, wealthy brat—dies. The bad guys get her, and that becomes his justification for everything that follows. (This happens early on.) His wife, it turns out, has been sleeping around and isn’t all that attached to him, despite the vast resources he has placed at her very fingertips. Victoria Steers, the boss lady, is a sociopath, ordering people tortured and/or killed without her pulse quickening. It’s just business. And then we have two side characters, Walt’s stepmother—also immoral, having slept with Walt while married to his dad—is one, and the other is Rhett’s little sister, who is intellectually disabled. In short, we have a number of women that have no redeeming qualities, and none that are both capable and decent.

So, what’s not to love here? (Eye roll.)

The end of the book isn’t an ending, and while I get it that Baldacci is starting a new series and wants to keep readers invested, I’m ready to climb off the bus. Now that I know this author’s general trajectory, I know enough.

So if you enjoy this sort of thing, don’t care even a little about plausible plots and scenarios, and have little enough regard for women that you don’t mind these Madonna/whore characters, then good for you. Pull out your plastic and dive into this series. As for me, I need a shower and some mouthwash.