Customer Reviews

Split Second

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Where to begin with this book.

Before reading this book, my top five books were:
1) Roses Are Red by James Patterson
2) 1st to Die by James Patterson
3) The Vanished Man by Jeffery Deaver
4) Silent Justice by William Bernhardt
5) And Then There Were None by Agatha Christe

Number five on that list has been bumped and "Split Second" takes a proud stand at number 2 bumping the rest down a bit.

This book had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. All the way from the intriguing prologue to the twisted finish of the book, this book had me hooked, staying up nights to finish "just one more chapter."

Prologue: 1996--Our first agent takes his tragic downfall after having his attention diverted by......well, you'll have to wait until later in the book for that.

Then, the rest of the book starts in current time. Our second agent makes a mistake that ends with the kidnapping? death? of a presidential candidate.

Not long later, our two agents meet and begin to realize that these two events are not isolated...they are related. But how? Why?

The book throws more and more curve balls at you, leaving you wondering what the heck is going on.

Then comes the twist in the final showdown. Then, another twist in there.

I mean, wow. All I can say, is read this book.

I agree with another reviewer that the best aspect of this book is the love triangle--steamy! My only hesitation with this work was that a few of the twists and turns didn't need to be there--there were enough to keep your interest and a few less might have been less of a distraction. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes a page turner.

Would also recommend another book I read recently THE BARK OF THE DOGWOOD--shocking and not for the fain-of-heart.

A Total Disappointment

I have been a Baldacci fan since reading Total Control, The Winner and Saving Faith, all good books and worth the time. But, Split Second? All I can say is, infuriating. An unbelievable plot, a cast of confusing, cliched characters, and an absolutely ridiculous ending. It all adds up to a real waste of trees used to make the paper for this thing.

I almost wonder if this wasn't something he wrote in high school and now that he is famous, he thought he could pull it out and pass it off as a "real novel." His editors and agents should have stepped in and stopped this before it got to print. After trying and trying, I did eventually plow though it all, because as I told my wife, "I can't believe how confusing and dumb this is. I just have to read to the end, to see how he is going to work himself of this morass of a plot." In a sentence? The ending was as dumb and confusing as the rest of the book.

The few people on here who have given this book four or five stars must work for the publisher, be relatives of Baldacci, or are cult followers ready to swallow the Kool Aid. I've never seen so many negative reviews for a book on Amazon. I only wish I had read them before I started it and not after.

If you must read a Baldacci book, go for Total Control or The Winner, they are both page turners. Well actually, Split Second was a page turner also. You had to keep turning them back and forth to try and figure out this confusing mess.

I'm sorry to be so negative, but I liked Baldacci, enjoyed his other books, and had high hopes for this story. After reading this I am hesitant to try any of his others, but will probably give him one more chance to make up for this clunker.

Baldacci, is a bad writer, all his production except the very first one (Absolute Power, which was average) was well below average, but this one is truly beyond the pale. The character presentation is so naive, that one would suspect that the author is still struggling through the high school.

While I generally enjoy David Baldacci's books, this one was somewhat of a disappointment. It was a relatively entertaining read, but not much else. I thought the characters were a little too typecast and cliched. For example Michelle Maxwell was the perfect ex-jock golden girl. She was practically flawless.

Also, the plot ran at an okay pace, but it was nothing to alert the media about. Split Second is all about how a political assassination that happened more than a decade ago links to the kidnapping of John Bruno, a candidate for the presidency of the United States. Bruno is kidnapped as a result of Secret Service Agent Maxwell's error in judgment, and thus she sets out to exonerate herself by linking up with ex-Agent Sean King-- the man who took the heat for the first assassination. The rest of the book is basically all about how the two form a partnership and go about trying to nab the bad guys and clear their name.

Its a decent plot, but the characters don't do the plot justice. And there are parts of the story where I felt the evidence was rather weak. At certain junctures it even seemed as though Baldacci had run out of options and was just winging it.

So read it if you've got nothing better to do. But if you want a good Baldacci nail-biter, pick up Saving Faith instead.

I am a big fan of Baldacci but I just finished this one today & must say i was disappointed. I found myself skimming the last 1/3 of the book just so I could finish it.

The beginning was good & I couldn't put it down! I was really looking forward to a nice complex entertaining story but it just got too hard to follow & really just boring.

The ending was just ridiculous....very implausible & almost laughable. What a disappointment.

I can't believe this got more stars than Absolute Power & Saving Faith???

This is a convoluted tangle that doesn't do Baldacci justice. It has too many parts that just don't hold up. Read Saving Faith and Absolute Power instead!

i knew it be a matter of time before the grishman/baldacci style of writing junk for the masses would get to me. well, it has. I read this book in two days and like other reviewers found the story implausible and the charachter development moronic. i guess that is why grishman/baldacci sell so well.

As a fan of David Baldacci, I looked forward to this book after ordering it from Amazon. The premise was fine, but there was no real character development, there was at least one embarrassing lapse in logic (spoiler warning: when the agents suspected Jorst had hidden the gun, they never thought it through with regard to the two women who were killed), and the end was way, way too far-fetched. Like another reviewer said, the villain was an impossible cartoon, and worse, his motivation for doing all that he did was just lame. I won't even be lending this book to anybody.

The book puts the reader in the middle of the action within the first 20 pages. Two similar events, 8 years apart, involving both a Secret Service agent, apparently unconnected, quickly come together into a single story with many characters, events, surprises, in this past paced thriller. Overall a well structured story, keeps you reading, and you better do or you'll forget some of the pieces of the puzzle. I enjoyed it. Only minor point: the author includes sometimes too many "thoughts" of possible theories/plots that tend to confuse.