Split Second (King & Maxwell)

EDITORIAL REVIEW: From #1 bestseller David Baldacci comes a new thriller reminiscent of his phenomenal bestselling debut, Absolute Power. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. Full of shocking twists and turns, and introducing a villian to rival Jackson in Baldacci's The Winner, SPLITSECOND is pure, mind-numbing adrenaline to the last page. Two Secret Service agents sworn to guard their protectees lost them in a single moment . . . and in this #1 New York Times bestseller, they're about to learn that the violence has just begun.Michelle Maxwell has just wrecked her promising career at the Secret Service. Against her instincts, she let a presidential candidate out of her sight for the briefest moment and the man whose safety was her responsibility vanished into thin air.​Sean King knows how the younger agent feels. Eight years earlier, the hard-charging Secret Service agent allowed his attention to be diverted for a split second. And the candidate he was protecting was gunned down before his eyes. Now Michelle and Sean are about to see their destinies converge.Drawn into a maze of lies, secrets, and deadly coincidences, the two discredited agents uncover a shocking truth: that the separate acts of violence that shattered their lives were really a long time in the making—and are a long way from over. "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. 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. 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 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. 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." --goodreads.com Two Secret Service agents, one of them retired, have each had similar experiences losing presidential candidates while assigned to protect them. As the two discredited agents enter a maze of lies, secrets, and deadly coincidences, they uncover a shocking truth: that the separate acts of violence that shattered their lives were really a long time in the making --and are a long way from over. SPLIT SECOND is a tale of two disgraced Secret Service agents racing against time to find the common thread that connects a series of assassinations and abductions."Played" and misled by suspects, the duo search for answers.