The Camel Club was published by Warner Books in 2005. The Camel Club consists of four men who meet regularly in a park near the White House: Oliver Stone (a pseudonym — his real identity is the series’ central mystery), a homeless man who protests in front of the White House; Reuben Rhodes, a former DIA agent; Milton Farb, a germaphobic genius; and Caleb Shaw, a Library of Congress employee.
They are conspiracy theorists — but unlike most conspiracy theorists, they are also intelligent, resourceful, and (it turns out) correct. They witness what appears to be a Secret Service agent killing someone in a park, and their investigation leads them into a genuine conspiracy: a plot by rogue intelligence operatives to manipulate the President into a course of action that will enrich them while endangering national security.
The series (four novels: The Camel Club, The Collectors, Stone Cold, Divine Justice) is Baldacci’s most sustained creation: Oliver Stone — a man who has erased his own identity and lives off the grid — embodies the paranoid conviction that powerful people do terrible things and that ordinary citizens are the only check on institutional power.
Collecting The Camel Club
First edition (Warner Books, New York, 2005): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $20–$50
- Very good/very good: $10–$25