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I'm just rewriting. :) A bit of trimming, a bit of adding: "You understand — it's nothing personal." It wasn't quite a question. When Robert Jansen didn't quite provide an answer, the man turned and left. Jansen lowered his gaze to the Beretta on the desk. After a long moment, he sighed, picked it up, and left the study, locking the door behind him. ...

While I'm going to need some more time in order to look at this fully, I think that the answer to your question of "is this too condensed" is "yes". The main thing I notice from the very start is that you do a lot of "telling" and not a lot of "showing". For instance, the very first two sentences: Moses was a writer. A good writer. Here you are ...

Paragraph length isn't the problem here, although the paragraphs could stand to be broken up a bit. The biggest problem here is a problem of focus and organization. A paragraph should have a fairly concise point; it's not simply a container for sentences. The main problems here are those of organization (on the large and small levels) and editing. Focus ...

I'm just posting a second answer rather than try to force this into 500 characters: I kept your first sentence, although I punctuated it to sound like actual speech. I can certainly hear the intonation you intend, but that requires a pause. So I added an M-dash. I know what you were getting at with the idea that he's both asking a question and making a ...

All around, it's actually not too bad. Some tips: The natural tendency when you're writing action scenes is to over-describe -- so start cutting bits. Look for things that are redundant, and especially look for things that are over-specific with limbs (hands, legs, etc.), and with measurements. The readers don't need to know where all the limbs go unless ...

I hope this explains what's been said as opposed to reiterating it. -ing phrases slow the pace. Subsidiary clauses slow the pace. You're writing action. Don't slow the pace. Modern middle school English teachers ask students for sentence variation. -ing phrases are a common result. These phrases may sound scholarly, but they do not work in fiction. If you ...

I will say that the "half asked, half asserted" construction is a bit cumbersome. I then expected him to half-turn and half-exit while leaving half-empty silence in the air. I also found the "make and model" of the gun and car to be a bit jarring. Lauren mitigates this in an effective way, but specifying these things might be part of your style. Within ...

I like the flow just the way it is. I don't see any inconsistencies in these few paragraphs. And I think there is plenty here to intrigue readers. Several stylistic choices tripped me up as I read. My first stumble was over modifiers. Consider replacing "swiftly walked" with a stronger verb. "Tragically" is unnecessary. We know that a daughter's ...

Whether you use this section as a prologue (I think prelude is more commonly used to refer to music) or a flashback is ultimately a stylistic and structural decision that depends on the overall flow of your book. I find myself rearranging/moving chunks of text around quite a bit while editing. That said, as a reader I prefer books to be told in chronological ...