Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I was very disappointed with theis book. I read the cover and inside & thought it sounded like it would keep my interest. I couldn't wait to finish only to get it over with because it was boring. Those that thought it was so good should read books by Harlan Cohen. He is an author and you can't put his books down.
Rating: 
Summary: (4 1/2) A Page turner by an Excellent Storyteller
Review: David Baldacci burst on the scene with his action-adventure novel ABSOLUTE POWER; while his next four books included some elements of mystery they were all basically in the genre of the original work. However, when SAVING FAITH was followed by WISH YOU WELL, an intensely personal story of Applachian hardship and its effect on all the lives that it touched, it was clear that he possessed more versatility as an author than his early work had indicated. He then returned to the action-adventure genre with the successful LAST MAN STANDING, an incredibly suspenseful but overly long story involving the unraveling of a very complicated mystery (four star review of 9/18/02). He then once again demonstrated his versatility with THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN, a delightful novel with marvelous character development in the guise of a mystery (five star review of 11/20/02). SPLIT SECOND returns to his original genre but with sporadic intense action interspersed with a complicated mystery involving two Secret Service agents whose careers were each destroyed in the "SPLIT SECOND" that it took for the presidential candidates whom they were guarding to be the victims of foul play. On September 26th, 1996, Clyde Ritter was killed by an assassin while campaigning for President; that assassin was then immediately shot to death by Agent Sean King. But as Baldacci observes, "three men had actually died that day, and King had been one of them... [but King] had it far worse than the others...they went into their coffins and were forever mourned...after his death his burden was that he had to keep right on living". Eight years later, King has gradually constructed an "unspectacular" life for himself, but this life is suddenly disrupted by a seies of killings in which he becomes a suspect. At the same time, Agent Michelle Maxwell's Secret Service career is destroyed when John Bruno, the candidate whom she is guarding is mysteriously kidnapped and a fellow agent in her detail murdered by individuals whose motivation is a complete mystery. Michelle becomes obsessed with the simalarities between the Bruno and Ritter incidents and eventually convinces Sean to join forces with her in attemting to locate John Bruno and investigate the highly improbable fact that there is a connection between the recent killings in his community and the events involving Bruno and Ritter. A romantic complication and additional intrigue and plot complications are provided by the appearance of Joan Dillinger, a fellow agent of Scotts who was at the scene of the Ritter assasination and is now working for a private agency hired to find John Bruno. Needless to say, the plot is complicated, and it is often unclear which events are truly connected and what are just surprising coincidences. While I really enjoyed the story and found it hard to put down, it had some flaws which after some deliberation kept me from rating it five stars. First, the narration switched between the first person and the third person, and while the technique was very effective it was irritating at times. Sean King would be the narrator and yet suddenly you would not be privy to certain thoughts that he had or conclusions which he had drawn. Since this was offset by information provided by the author that Sean did not have available, it was like the reader was trying to solve the mystery with different (although overlapping) clues than the characters in the story. Second, while the story was very clever and internally consistent some elements were quite unlikely or farfetched. Third, while in retrospect there were some clues available to the reader as to the eventual solution to the mystery, the misdirection and withholding of some crucial information make it overly difficult to anticipate who the mysterious central character "Buick Man" really is and what his motivation might be. Last, the ending was quite contived and abrupt, although it does seem to indicate that we might meet Sean and Michelle again. So, I highly recommend this book to those readers who want a blend of mystery and action in the typical Baldacci style, and felt that it benefitted from the fact that it was more concisely written than LAST MAN STANDING. Tucker Andersen
Rating: 
Summary: Less than mediocre effort
Review: It's hard for me to believe that so many gave this book a good rating. What were they thinking?! This book is so utterly contrived, so far-fetched, and so ridiculous that it would not have qualified for even a secondary school short story. Good fiction is so hard to come by, but mediocre efforts abound that make for reasonably good reading fare. No so with Baldacci's latest book. The story line is gratuitously clever by one half stretching credibility to well beyond the breaking point. Additionally the writing is way, way WAY below par. Honestly, it was written as though by a child. I've loved many of Baldacci's former efforts and was looking forward to his latest book, but what an utter disappointment. If you like your stories exciting, believable, well written, with good character development that lures you further into the story this book is not for you. Even if you are still in grammar school this book is not for you because it does so many things so wrong. Trust me, and don't waste your time and effort on this book. It truly is a stinker. It went directly into the trash can after I read it. There isn't a single person I know that would enjoy this book. I did learn one thing from this book: That the top reviewers on this site are not to be trusted. I enjoy reading the reviews on this site before reading a book and am not often steered too wrong. I was here.
Rating: 
Summary: 3 1/2 stars
Review: See book summary above. I've read all of Baldacci's books. What he's served up here is not your highly suspenseful thriller or a fast-paced shoot'em up. Instead what you get is a slowly unraveling mystery (and I mean slow), the type of which many authors write. Some people may love this kind of novel, but I don't.
It's not what I expected, but as far as straight mystery goes, it works.
Rating:
Summary: An insult
Review: David Baldacci used to be a GREAT author, one whose work I would patiently look forward to. After reading his last two books before this one (The Christmas Train and Last Man Standing) I promised myself I would forever skip over any future books from him. I caved in. I gave him one another chance. A stupid move. Very stupid. About as stupid as this book. This book is so incredibly contrived and far-fetched, that I'm insulted that he would think we would buy into it even for a few evening's readings. Save yourself your time. Save yourself your money. But more importantly, save yourself the anger you'll experience after reading this book and realizing you were taken for an idiot. There are far better books out there to spend your time on. Oh, and David: "Never again!"
Rating: 
Summary: Another Blockbuster To Be Sure!
Review: With "Split Second" by talented-storyteller David Baldacci, I was so engrossed with the story I had trouble putting the book down! I know you won't be able to put this book down either!
Yes, the story is that compelling! In, "SPLIT SECOND" all it takes is a split second for someone's worst nightmare to actually come true. Former CIA Agent Sean Kings knows this only too well. He glanced away briefly, but it was all the time an assassin needed to kill a president candidate he was supposed to be protecting and so the story begins... SPLIT SECOND is one fantastic story written by one fantastic writer! (Take '10' writer Baldacci you've earned it with this great story!)
Rating:
Summary: One of the last villains didn't
Review: I liked SPLIT SECOND. Kinda reminded me of early Ludlum. There are two "good" guys (well, one's a guy -- the other's a girl). The rest of the characters are all suspect, in one way or the other. Sean King is an ex-Secret Service Agent who saw the presidential candidate he was assigned to protect get gunned down. Flash forward eight years. Michelle Maxwell is a Secret Service Agent who loses her candidate. He simply vanishes into thin air. Other than King and Maxwell, you never know who to trust. You know the two shamed agents are going to get together, but how Balducci does it is and how he weaves all the stories into an understandable tapestry is what made this book work. Not to spoil the ending, I did think the storyline involving one of the final villains was over the top. The author left the ending with King and Maxwell forming their own agency. There's chemistry between them. The sequels should be fun. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: disgrace
Review: I dont think he wrote this book. If he did, he ought to be ashamed of himself.
Rating:
Summary: An Edge of Your Seat Thriller
Review: I bought this book on a Friday night and became so captivated by the story that I ended up devoting every spare second of my weekend to it. By Sunday night, it was history and I hadn't had very much sleep in between the things I had to do over the weekend and the one thing that I found myself unexpectedly wanting to do - which was to get back to Split Second to find out what would come next. Split Seconds starts out by describing two seemingly unrelated security breaches for protectees of the U.S. Secret Service. The incidents are set eight years apart and on the surface, the only common ground that they seem to share is the fact that both involved the Secret Service and in each case, an agent was individually blamed for what went wrong. Yet, there is so much more to Split Second. There is a highly complex connection between the two events and that is the suspense and delight of the story. David Baldacci has woven a wonderful plot through Spilt Second that kept me on the edge of my seat. It is well written and very well paced. Despite the complexity of the story, Baldacci's writing style and clear explanations made it an easy and enjoyable read. In Secret Service agents, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, Baldacci has cast two extremely well developed characters. These are two that I would like to see continued in a subsequent story. Kudos for Baldacci's latest! An exciting ride of suspenseful moments that kept me glued to the book from start to finish. Highly recommended! Daniel J. Maloney
Saint Paul, Minnesota USA
Rating:
Summary: Split Decision for Split Second
Review: Amazon's advance billing for David Baldacci's newest book, Split Second, states that this "new thriller [is] reminiscent of his phenomenal bestselling debut, Absolute Power." I loved Absolute Power and some of Baldacci's other novels so on my recent vacation, I gave Absolute Power a read. Certainly the story starts with a bang as Sean King, a secret service agent guarding the life of a presidential candidate, is momentarily distracted by an elevator door opening. Suddenly, King finds his protectee assassinated by a lone gunman. Who was the gunman? Why did he murder the candidate? And what (or who) could possibly distract a disciplined secret service agent at the peak of his career? Fast forward eight years to another secret service agent, Michelle Maxwell, and another presidential candidate. This time the candidate is kidnaped, but no ransom is demanded. Is there a connection between the assassination and the kidnaping? King and Maxwell team up to try to solve the mystery. In the page burning mayhem that follows, one of King's old lovers shows up (another secret service agent), a potential girlfriend is murdered and (literally) hung out to dry, a witness protection person is murdered in King's office, and a former lover is kidnaped. Meanwhile King and Maxwell repeatedly narrowly escape their own murders. With such a great plot set up, and given Baldacci's immense talent, I certainly expected Split Second to be "pure, mind-numbing adrenaline to the last page". (Quote - Amazon) Unfortunately the last half of Split Second is simply mind-numbing. It's almost hard to believe that the same person who wrote the first half of the book also wrote the rest of the book. For one thing, in the set up Baldacci establishes a love triangle between King, Maxwell, and another former secret service agent, Joan Dillinger. This has the potential to take an already good plot and boost it right into orbit. How would King balance two potential lovers, protect all three of them, and at the same time solve the mystery? King's dilemma could have made for delicious drama. I am disappointed that Baldacci chose not to take his story too far down this path. Another downfall of Split Second is closely related to the first. One of the love triumvirate mentioned above (I'll not mention who for the benefit of the gentle reader who chooses this book despite my mediocre recommendation) is kidnaped. Now wouldn't the reader expect that such an event would be a tragedy in his or her loved one's lives? Not according to Baldacci, evidently, who continues to write his other two characters' actions with little affect or affection. Wouldn't one remaining lover lament the loss? Wouldn't the other remaining lover take advantage of the opportunity? Wouldn't they at least think about this? We'll never know because Baldacci never tells us. Finally, this novel fails in my mind because of the letdown conclusion of the book. Both of the above discouragements could have been rescued by the kind of incredible ending that has made Baldacci so widely acclaimed. Not so this time round. In fact, the only truly surprising aspect of the ending is that it's so domestic. I've given Split Second a split decision with a 3 rating out of a possible 5. The story does move along at a good pace. Each chapter is short and advances the plot forward exactly one scene. In fact, the book almost reads more like a screen play than a novel. But I believe most readers will be disappointed in Baldacci's latest novel for its uneven storytelling. Unless you have an abundance of time and a shortage of books, I'd recommend a pass on Split Second.
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