A Calamity of Souls, book cover
June 02, 2025
A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci Book Review
This was my first David Baldacci novel—and actually my first mystery novel ever—and I’m still kind of reeling from how good it was.
I picked up A Calamity of Souls on a whim, not really sure what I was getting into, and by the end I was totally immersed. I didn’t expect to care this deeply about a legal mystery set in the 1960s South, but Baldacci makes it impossible not to. The story is gripping, yes, but it’s also deeply human and layered in ways I didn’t expect. I wasn’t just following clues—I was feeling every conversation, every injustice, every bit of tension in the air.
The characters really got to me. Jack Lee is such a complicated figure—he’s not a hero in the traditional sense, but he’s trying to do the right thing in a place and time that makes that incredibly hard. Desiree DuBose? She’s a force. Smart, steady, brave. Their dynamic isn’t flashy, but it’s honest, and it carried so much weight. I appreciated how their partnership developed without ever feeling forced. It felt earned.
The mystery itself is strong—it unfolds in a way that kept me fully engaged, and it didn’t rely on cheap twists or dramatic gimmicks. Instead, it felt real. Messy, tense, painful at times, but real. And the setting—the American South during the Civil Rights era—adds so much more than just atmosphere. It’s central to the story. The racism, the fear, the silence, the complicated relationships—it’s all there, and it’s handled with weight and care.
More than once, I found myself just sitting with a line or a scene, letting it sink in. There’s something haunting about the way Baldacci writes this particular story. You feel the hopelessness and the resistance. You feel the cost of truth. But you also feel these small moments of hope, of connection, of people quietly choosing courage.