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Split Second | 
 enlarge | Author: David Baldacci
Publisher: Warner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
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Rating:  178 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1ST
Pages: 406
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.5
ISBN: 0446530891
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780446530897
Publication Date: September 1, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
From #1 bestseller David Baldacci comes a new thriller reminiscent of his phenomenal bestselling debut, Absolute Power. It was only a split second-but that's all it took for Secret Service agent Sean King's attention to wander and his 'protectee,' third-party presidential candidate Clyde Ritter, to die. King retired from the Service in disgrace, and now, eight years later, balances careers as a lawyer and a part-time deputy sheriff in a small Virginia town. Then he hears the news: Once again, a third-party candidate has been taken out of the presidential race-abducted right under the nose of Secret Service agent Michelle Maxwell. King and Maxwell form an uneasy alliance, and their search for answers becomes a bid for redemption as they delve into the government's Witness Protection Program and the mysterious past of Clyde Ritter's dead assassin. But the truth is never quite what it seems, and these two agents have learned that even one moment looking in the wrong direction can be deadly. Full of shocking twists and turns, and introducing a villian to rival Jackson in Baldacci's The Winner, SPLITSECOND is pure, mind-numbing adrenaline to the last page.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 173 more reviews...
fast moving November 23, 2008
PT.Lee (Masschusetts)
The story moved well but Ifound the ending did not fit the story line.
 laughable October 17, 2008
an opinionated consumer (los angeles)
I do not expect mysteries to be great literature necessarily, but I do expect the ultimate denouement to be at least somewhat comprehensible and credible. This one was neither. The denoument of this plot was utterly contrived. It was absurd, and lacked any and all credibility. It was actually laughable. I feel cheated, having wasted my time reading this whole book only to be met with such a cheap ending.
No Option for Zero Stars? September 22, 2008
John Walsh (Santa Clara)
I am a Balducci fan. I have read half I dozen of his books and enjoyed them all. Until now. No, this is not the worst book I have ever read. But it is close.
Plot is important. Great characters and story telling will not keep a poor story afloat.
The story started with a bang and just kept building through the first half of the book. Then I started to wonder how Balducci was going to pull it all together in the end. Not well it turns out. The crazy guy did it. Peoples lives ruined over a period of thirty years and presidential candidates falling left and right and the reason is.....unrequited love. I wish I was kidding.
The bad taste this book has left me may keep me from ever trying Balducci again. It was that bad.
 A fun bit of fluff June 20, 2008
E. Truman
The book grabbed me from the start -- it had suspense, conspiracy, interesting characters, etc. Somewhere around the middle it lost speed, and by the end I was shaking my head in disgust. Sorry. The best part of the book was getting an "inside" look at how the Secret Service works. I'm not sure how much of this was made up by Mr. Baldacci, but if you're interested in getting a (fictional) account of the Service, you will enjoy Split Second.
Quite good except for the extremely poor solution June 17, 2008
ALu69 (Hamburg, Germany)
PLOT: Once Sean King was one of the best agents in the Secret Service. But one day his attention was diverted for only a split second and a presidential candidate was killed right next to him. So Sean had to leave the Service. 8 years later Secret Service agent Michelle Maxwell lets a presidential candidate out of her sight and in that short moment the candidate disappears. Two completely different incidents, no common denominator, no link between the two agents. And yet their destinies are interdependent. They need each other and they need to solve the riddle. One to save her future, one to dispel the demons of his past...
The premise of the book is really great and promised long time of continuous reading. Also the two main characters are really great and well developed - as a reader you just must love them. And of course there are several twists and turns in the book that will make you wonder about the link between the two incidents. I stayed up long hours to get closer to the answer. 'Who' and especially 'Why' were the main questions I asked myself again and again. But I could not solve the riddle. Maybe because new characters were introduced repeatedly and there are lots of dead ends during the agent's investigation?
The introduction of a third ex Secret Service agent as another main character is unexpected and also a bit strange because I never got rid of the feeling that the motive and the behavior of that person did not fit in. And Sean's connection with that agent is really strange after all what happened. On the other hand the story would not work without that character.
OK every book has flaws.
For once you wonder why the perpetrator is always so well informed and at the right spot at the right time right from the start. Furthermore it seems very strange that he is able to set up Sean and Michelle so easily all the time - doing things he should not be able to. You also wonder why that person does not stop the two agents early in their investigation.
Second, you wonder why Sean and Michelle split for each night when already somebody attempted to kill them. Shouldn't they watch each other's back a lot closer?
Third, after a while you do not need to be a genius to figure out what distracted Sean during his duty 8 years earlier. But you wonder why nobody else saw what he saw [or why it was not captured on film etc.] and why he never mentioned it to anybody. (The explanation for it later on is kind of lame.)
Nevertheless most of the flaws mentioned are minor and do not really spoil the fun of reading.
Unfortunately towards the end of the book something really strange happened. Something that I have never experienced before. The first three quarters of the book I had difficulties to put it down because it was so thrilling. The closer I came to the ending though, I had a strange urge to slow down reading. It might be because both tension and pace slow down in the end. Or the fear that the ending with all its conclusions and explanations would not be satisfying. Regrettably the fear was justified.
The ending is really disappointing and could even be called ridiculous or plain stupid.
Somebody plans for years and creates this clever plot - all for that?! That is really lame. Nobody with a motive like that would go through all the difficulties to create such a scenario. Or you need a better and stronger motive to do so. Sorry Mr. Baldacci but I am not buying it!
Looking back at the other two Baldacci books I read ("Last Man Standing" + "The Simple Truth") I have a hunch that there might be a general problem with his books: The start is brilliant, the tension is high, you cannot put the book aside but at the end you are not happy with the solution. From those 3 books "Split Second" is the weakest one because the ending is really, really extremely bad/stupid/ridiculous/unbelievable/poor/lame and it ruins the whole story. Therefore 2 stars only.
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