While the two protagonists aren’t especially complex or well developed, the action never stops, and Baldacci’s trademark pacing keeps the reader turning pages until the denouement, which unfortunately isn’t quite as satisfying as the rest of the novel. But even before the chief suspect in the break in meets his death in a gruesome slaying reminiscent of a serial killer long since caught and punished, King and Maxwell get caught up in a string of other murders, each of which copies the techniques of another madman, from San Francisco’s Zodiac Killer to Chicago’s infamous John Wayne Gacy. Now partners in a private investigation firm in a small Virginia town, they’re hired to investigate a burglary at the home of a wealthy local family. Sean King was momentarily distracted when a presidential candidate he’d been guarding was assassinated a few feet from where he stood, and Michelle Maxwell left the Service under a similar cloud when she lost a ‘protectee’ to an ingenious kidnapping scheme, events told in Baldacci’s typical terse, fast paced style in Split Second. Two disgraced former Secret Service officers team up to solve a series of copy cat crimes in this exciting new thriller by a master of the game. Full of shocking twists and turns, and introducing a villian to rival Jackson in Baldacci’s The Winner, Split Second is pure, mind numbing adrenaline to the last page.
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.
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. 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 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. 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.
From 1 bestseller David Baldacci comes a new thriller reminiscent of his phenomenal bestselling debut, Absolute Power.
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