Memory Man was published by Grand Central Publishing in 2015. Amos Decker is a former NFL linebacker whose career ended after a vicious hit gave him a traumatic brain injury. The injury’s unexpected side effect: hyperthymesia — perfect autobiographical memory. Decker remembers every moment of his life in absolute detail. He cannot forget. He also acquired synesthesia — he perceives numbers as colors, emotions as physical sensations.
These abilities made him a brilliant detective. But they also mean he cannot escape his worst memory: returning home to find his wife, daughter, and brother-in-law murdered. The case went cold. Now, years later, someone has committed a mass shooting at the high school Decker attended — and the killer has left a message that connects back to his family’s murder.
Decker is Baldacci’s most distinctive creation: a massive, physically imposing man (he still carries his football bulk) whose perfect memory makes him both supernaturally effective as an investigator and profoundly damaged as a human being. He cannot forget pain, cannot rewrite memory to soften trauma, cannot achieve the ordinary mercy of fading that most humans rely on to survive grief.
Collecting Memory Man
First edition (Grand Central Publishing, New York, 2015): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $15–$35
- Very good/very good: $8–$15