Split Second by David Baldacci

Secret Service Agent Sean King allows himself to be distracted while guarding a minor presidential candidate and the candidate is shot and killed. The error, and King's refusal to explain why he was looking away, cost him his career.

Eight years later Michelle Maxwell is protecting another minor presidential candidate. She violate the rules by giving in to his demand for privacy to visit with an old friend. She allows him to go into a room alone and he's kidnapped.

At the same time Sean, who is now a successful attorney in North Carolina, finds one of his associates dead on the floor of his office. Michelle sees him on the news and becomes interested in the case that drove him from the Secret Service, which she sees as similar to her own problems.

Joan is another former Secret Service agent, now working as a security consultant. She has been hired by the missing man's family to find him because they don't trust the government to a thorough job. She goes to North Carolina to try to hire Sean to help her. The story follows Sean, Michelle & Joan as they form an uneasy alliance to sort out the three cases and determine why they all seem to be connected to Sean.

The book started out well. Baldacci writes interesting characters and has a flare of creating suspense. The tensions between the main characters were interesting and the action moved along well. Unfortunately the whole thing fell apart at the end. The villain was a cartoon and the plot was ridiculous. I know that this type of book requires some suspension of disbelief, but this one simply stretched that past the breaking point. By the time the cause of Sean's original lapse in attention was revealed I just didn't care.

Grade C-