Eventually, it stopped me cold—for the first time I was faced with an assignment that I simply could not complete. And would never have been able to had Tony Gilroy not come to save me. The Novel November ’94. Martin Shafer, who runs Castle Rock films, called and said he was sending me Executive Power, a first novel by a young Washington lawyer, David Baldacci. Shafer mentioned nothing specific pertaining to the plot but he did tell me this: that Baldacci, in the last three weeks, had sold the worldwide book and movie rights for five million dollars. Better than a sharp stick in the eye. The next day a 466-page typed manuscript arrived. I had never read a novel with that kind of early success. (Few ever had.) Curious as hell, I started reading, wondering what magic potion Mr. Baldacci had come up with. It broke down as follows: Chapter 1, this page–this page A great old thief, LUTHER WHITNEY, breaks into a deserted mansion belonging to eighty-year-old WALTER SULLIVAN, one of the more powerful billionaires around.
