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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
dialogue is trite; characters too many; baldacci is clunky and forced with exploring relationships and attempts at humour.
failed attempts to incite excitement, primarily by having the reader believe the character "figured it out" but what exactly is not revealed. Is this somehow supposed to make me more curious and anxious. The only mystery and intrigue is that which is intentionally not revealed. it all comes together at the end but instead leaves the reader with no satisfaction and distant from the story.
("...you have a lot to learn about women.") uugh
failed attempts to incite excitement, primarily by having the reader believe the character "figured it out" but what exactly is not revealed. Is this somehow supposed to make me more curious and anxious. The only mystery and intrigue is that which is intentionally not revealed. it all comes together at the end but instead leaves the reader with no satisfaction and distant from the story.
("...you have a lot to learn about women.") uugh
This is the start of King and Maxwell and a really good story. After they find a shared spirit of being outcast from the Secret Service, they discover there is much more that they have in common - a common enemy. During pursuit of the case, they discover things about each other and are faced with a new future.
Ugh. Stilted dialogue, wooden writing, comic book characters.
An intersting read but I think I would have enjoyed this more if I had not watched the TNT tv series last year. I will have to read a few more of these to confirm a more informed opinion...
3.5 stars
3.5 stars
Decent Baldacci style mystery/action novel. Seems like the main characters still need to figure out the chemistry between them. The "surprise" ending was telegraphed halfway through the book. Still the last third of the book was gripping and hard to put down.
I saw the TV series first and enjoyed it.
Sean King is distracted by something for a split second and then a presidential candidate is dead. He loses his career and his planned future and has to start again.
Michelle Maxwell is leading a detail to protect a presidential candidate when she lets him go into a room without her and he disappears, the similarity between her and Sean's cases cause her to reopen the investigation and King has to deal with his issues about it. Key witnesses start turning up dead or missing so the two of them are on a race to discover the truth. It will change their lives.
It was entertaining to be reading this while both a presidential campaign, where one of the candidates is interpreted as suggesting assassination as a solution and while the Olympics are ongoing (Maxwell is an ex-olympian), and to crown things off when Ireland were involved in rowing (and getting medals!), it made it resonate a bit more. I like the story and I find the characters entertaining and I could hear the actors in my mind as the banter started between King and Maxwell. I'm looking forward to more in this series.
Sean King is distracted by something for a split second and then a presidential candidate is dead. He loses his career and his planned future and has to start again.
Michelle Maxwell is leading a detail to protect a presidential candidate when she lets him go into a room without her and he disappears, the similarity between her and Sean's cases cause her to reopen the investigation and King has to deal with his issues about it. Key witnesses start turning up dead or missing so the two of them are on a race to discover the truth. It will change their lives.
It was entertaining to be reading this while both a presidential campaign, where one of the candidates is interpreted as suggesting assassination as a solution and while the Olympics are ongoing (Maxwell is an ex-olympian), and to crown things off when Ireland were involved in rowing (and getting medals!), it made it resonate a bit more. I like the story and I find the characters entertaining and I could hear the actors in my mind as the banter started between King and Maxwell. I'm looking forward to more in this series.
Sometimes you stay up late with a book because it's just that great and you can't bear to put it down; other times, you find yourself up late because you just want this PoS book out of your life as soon as possible.
Like a lot of people right now, I picked up Split Second because it's recently been made into a TV show and I was interested in checking out the source material. Usually the visual media conversion of a book comes off the poorer in any comparison, but after having read the book, I have to say that every change the production company has made has come off as genius in comparison to the poorly written, illogical mess that is Split Second.
It's one of those books that's not just bad, it's boring. I want to call the prose workmanlike, but honestly, I've read a lot of myster-thrillers, it's a genre that generally lends itself to fairly functional storytelling and the prose in Split Second was clunkier and less inspired than its peers. The characters were flat, uninteresting and felt a bit too much like Baldacci's wish-fulfillment.
Related to this, I hated how he wrote Maxwell and the other major female character, Joan Dillinger, both separately and together.The relationship between King and Dillinger at least relates back to the plot, but Maxwell's instant fascination with King, her immediate deference and trust, her weird, out-of-place jealousy about Dillinger and the stupid, ugly catfighting between Dillinger and Maxwell over King was predictable, tedious and made me feel like I was an unwilling voyeur into Baldacci's id.
The plot, such as it was, was just painful to get through. Some of this is a style issue. On the one hand, Baldacci gives out information—and really obvious information at that—and then spends the next dozen pages having the characters verbally rehash what just happened. On the other hand, he plays annoyingly coy with any/all the information that would actually let the reader put the pieces together in a way that I more commonly associate with YA, where the author tells you that the character(s) has found or concluded something, but doesn't bother to tell you what it is. I, personally, don't like those types of mysteries; it always feels as though the author isn't playing fair with the reader and that the story (and/or storyteller) isn't good enough to play fair.
The other part of the problem is just that the plot is freaking ridiculous.A spurned and obsessed auteur manipulates events and politics and people just to try and make his former lady-love/muse (who is also dead before the book even begins) come back to him through absurdly elaborate plots involving dozens, if not hundreds of people, over a period of decades? There is not enough eyeroll in the world for how dumb this story was.
The execution was equally poor. There are all the aforementioned problems, obviously. In one of my status updates, I commented, "This guy never met a scene he wouldn't rather tell than show." (This is especially absurd in a scene where Baldacci narrates only Sean King's half of a phone conversation, even though Sean is the POV character) The forensic and procedural elements read like someone who's never even watched a cop show, let alone done their research.
Bottom line: this was a terrible book that didn't even have the benefit of being interestingly bad. If I hadn't agreed to read it with my husband (and if he hadn't suffered through finishing it ahead of me) I would've never finished it. I certainly didn't enjoy it.
Like a lot of people right now, I picked up Split Second because it's recently been made into a TV show and I was interested in checking out the source material. Usually the visual media conversion of a book comes off the poorer in any comparison, but after having read the book, I have to say that every change the production company has made has come off as genius in comparison to the poorly written, illogical mess that is Split Second.
It's one of those books that's not just bad, it's boring. I want to call the prose workmanlike, but honestly, I've read a lot of myster-thrillers, it's a genre that generally lends itself to fairly functional storytelling and the prose in Split Second was clunkier and less inspired than its peers. The characters were flat, uninteresting and felt a bit too much like Baldacci's wish-fulfillment.
Related to this, I hated how he wrote Maxwell and the other major female character, Joan Dillinger, both separately and together.
The plot, such as it was, was just painful to get through. Some of this is a style issue. On the one hand, Baldacci gives out information—and really obvious information at that—and then spends the next dozen pages having the characters verbally rehash what just happened. On the other hand, he plays annoyingly coy with any/all the information that would actually let the reader put the pieces together in a way that I more commonly associate with YA, where the author tells you that the character(s) has found or concluded something, but doesn't bother to tell you what it is. I, personally, don't like those types of mysteries; it always feels as though the author isn't playing fair with the reader and that the story (and/or storyteller) isn't good enough to play fair.
The other part of the problem is just that the plot is freaking ridiculous.
The execution was equally poor. There are all the aforementioned problems, obviously. In one of my status updates, I commented, "This guy never met a scene he wouldn't rather tell than show." (This is especially absurd in a scene where Baldacci narrates only Sean King's half of a phone conversation, even though Sean is the POV character) The forensic and procedural elements read like someone who's never even watched a cop show, let alone done their research.
Bottom line: this was a terrible book that didn't even have the benefit of being interestingly bad. If I hadn't agreed to read it with my husband (and if he hadn't suffered through finishing it ahead of me) I would've never finished it. I certainly didn't enjoy it.
I love David Baldacci but haven't read his books in a little while. I typically enjoy series and decided to go ahead and pick this one up and really enjoyed it.
It's a little far fetched but in a good suspense reading way.
It's a little far fetched but in a good suspense reading way.
One of the best suspense books I've ever read... I highly recommend it!
