Long Road to Mercy was published by Grand Central Publishing in 2018. FBI Special Agent Atlee Pine is stationed at the Grand Canyon — one of the Bureau’s loneliest postings. When a mule is found dead under mysterious circumstances near the canyon floor, Pine investigates what appears to be a minor incident. It escalates rapidly: the mule’s death connects to a crashed military drone, which connects to a stolen nuclear weapon, which connects to an international conspiracy.
Pine is Baldacci’s first female series protagonist: physically powerful (she was a competitive kickboxer), emotionally damaged (her twin sister Mercy was abducted from their bedroom when they were six — Pine watched, unable to stop it), and professionally isolated (her Grand Canyon posting is partly self-imposed exile). The missing twin is the series’ long arc — each book brings Pine closer to discovering what happened to Mercy.
The Grand Canyon setting distinguishes the novel from Baldacci’s Washington-centric thrillers: the landscape itself becomes a character, its scale and indifference providing counterpoint to the human drama. Pine’s investigation requires both physical endurance (hiking the canyon’s trails) and intellectual rigor — a combination Baldacci uses to create a new kind of protagonist for his catalog.
Collecting Long Road to Mercy
First edition (Grand Central Publishing, New York, 2018): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $12–$25
- Very good/very good: $6–$12