Absolute Power was published by Warner Books in 1996. Luther Whitney is a sixty-six-year-old professional burglar — meticulous, patient, the best in the business. Breaking into a Georgetown mansion, he hides in a vault when the owner returns unexpectedly. Through the vault’s one-way mirror, Luther watches the President of the United States drunkenly beat and then kill his mistress — the mansion’s owner’s wife. The Secret Service agents present cover up the murder.
Luther escapes with evidence. The President’s chief of staff launches a ruthless operation to eliminate him. What follows is a cat-and-mouse thriller that escalates from individual murder to institutional conspiracy: the entire apparatus of the White House deployed to kill one man and protect the President from accountability.
Baldacci wrote the novel while working as a trial lawyer in Washington, D.C. — his knowledge of how power actually operates in the capital gives the thriller its specificity. Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the 1997 film adaptation (with Gene Hackman as the President). The novel sold millions of copies and Baldacci never practiced law again.
Collecting Absolute Power
First edition (Warner Books, New York, 1996): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $100–$300
- Very good/very good: $40–$100
- Signed copies: $150–$400