Split Second

Baldacci, David

ISBN 10: 1405041595 ISBN 13: 9781405041591

Publisher: Macmillan Audio Books, 2004

Synopsis

When something distracts Secret Agent, Sean King, for a split second, it costs him his career and presidential candidate, Clyde Ritter, his life. What stole his attention? Why was Ritter shot? Where were the other detail leaders?

Eight years later, Michelle Maxwell, is on the fast track through the ranks of the Secret Service when her career receives a lethal blow: presidential candidate, John Bruno is abducted from a funeral home while under her protection. The similarity between the two cases drives Michelle to re-open investigations into the Ritter fiasco and join forces with attractive ex-agent, King. The pair are determined to get to the bottom of what happened in those critical moments. Meanwhile, high-ranking members of the legal system and key witnesses from both cases are going missing. King is losing friends, colleagues and clients fast and his ex-lover, Joan Dillinger - a hard-biting, widely respected agent - is playing curious games. She wants Sean back and resents his growing relationship with Michelle - but - she also owes him for something . . .

About this title

Review

Split Second is David Baldacci at the top of his well-informed game, with a real sense of what the Secret Servicemen who protect the President and presidential candidates think about the job and how it feels to fail. Sean King looked away at the wrong moment and a man died; his career ended and he has spent eight years rebuilding a life. When Michelle Maxwell makes a similar mistake, she becomes convinced that there is a link between the man she lost to kidnappers and the man Sean failed to protect--and the more she learns, the more she can prove.

This is an odd couple thriller--Sean and Michelle have radically different attitudes to the job they both did well--and ingeniously put together in terms of what it tells us about the shadowy villain manipulating events and what it delays telling us about the past. It is a well-informed thriller that wears its research lightly--it has a sense of how it feels to see every large room as a potential killing ground in which you have to protect very vulnerable public men, and some charming scenes of budding romantic comedy. --Roz Kaveney

Review

"Baldacci's brain-teasing plot leaves you wanting more...high scoring shoot-'em-up." She lends an appropriate accent and inflection to the way LuAnn speaks before and after she becomes affluent. The narrator successfully manages to translate it into suspense through her speech and keeps the listener breathless with her flawless pacing and emotional pitch.

Edition details

• Publisher: Macmillan Audio Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1405041595
• ISBN 13: 9781405041591
• Binding: Audio CD
• Language: English