Split Second

David Baldacci's thrillers are always highly entertaining, and this work is no exception. Readers get an inside look into the workings of the Secret Service and the vigilance of the agents who guard their "assignments." When a presidential candidate disappears from a locked room, Agent Michelle Maxwell knows that her future with the Service is over. Eight years earlier, something similar happened, and Michelle begins to see a connection. Ron McLarty skillfully provides characters with unique personalities, maintaining the suspense in Baldacci's text. J.L.C. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

August 18, 2003
"We just solved a huge, complicated mystery," says one protagonist to another in this latest novel from the bestselling author of Last Man Standing, Absolute Power, etc. And that is the problem: this story of two disgraced Secret Service agents who come together to solve two campaign-trail crimes doesn't play to Baldacci's strengths, which are suspense and action (as well as strong characterizations; here's one thriller author who writes people that readers care about). The novel is primarily a mystery, with lots of talk and untangling of clues, and a less than gripping one at that. It begins in 1996, when Secret Service agent Sean King is distracted—by what isn't revealed until near the book's end—just when the presidential candidate he's guarding is shot dead. Eight years later, agent Michelle Maxwell lets the candidate she's watching enter a funeral parlor room alone; he's kidnapped. Then a body appears in the office of King, who's now a successful lawyer in North Carolina. Maxwell sees King on TV and decides to look into the event that caused his disgrace, so similar to hers. Meanwhile, King's old flame, Joan Dillinger, an ex-agent whose security firm has been hired to find the kidnapped presidential candidate, hires King to help in the hunt. The narrative ties binding the characters don't loosen much over the novel's course, as curious cross-currents flow between the two cases, all leading to a cinematic but off-the-wall denouement that reveals a villain who is more cartoon than human. What saves this novel are a few strong but brief action sequences and, above all, the interplay among the principal characters, particularly the romantic tensions among King, Maxwell and Dillinger. This is, alas, Baldacci's weakest thriller in years—but with its terrific title, the Baldacci name and heavy promo, it's bound to hit the lists.

Michelle Maxwell, a Secret Service agent assigned to a presidential candidate, sees her rising career slip away when the candidate is kidnapped. Eight years earlier, Agent Sean King was assigned to a candidate who was killed. With their professional lives similarly shattered, the two meet and uncover unlikely coincidences between the two events. Suspense mounts when a body appears in King's law office and when they are violently attacked. Scott Brick, a star among narrators, captures this smart and sophisticated work. Slight variations in his comfortably flat tone convey each character, with pace and emotion perfectly infused to enhance the mood of the mystery and the relationship between Michelle and Sean. F.L.F. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

June 15, 2003
Former Secret Service Agent Sean King tries for vindication, having lost his job when the candidate he was protecting lost his life.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.