I really rather enjoyed Harlan Coben’s previous novel, the ‘breakthrough’ Tell No One. Dropping the humorous, wise-cracking approach of his Myron Bolitar novels, Tell No One was a fiendishly-plotted ultra-pacy read with a reader-hooking premise: key protagonist’s beloved wife murdered in sensational circumstances appears, apparently alive and well, in a video clip on the internet. Expertly paced and choreographed, it was all over and done with before there was time to say, hang on, just what am I swallowing here?
I’m not sure precisely where I started to dislike this follow-up. Feelings of unease started with the book’s reader-hooking premise: key protagonist’s beloved brother, believed dead and the key suspect in the sensational murder of his girl-friend, turns up in a recent photograph. Then protagonist’s beloved partner also disappears.
Shortly after it transpires that our central character is a heart-on-sleeve do-gooder, in both respects just like his predecessor in Tell No One, and also has a job that gives him ready access to the less fortunate of this society, a fact crucial to later developments in the story. (There is, by the way, some good stuff here on the work of out-reach organisations with big city street kids.) And, once again, there is FBI involvement and a mysterious sadistic psychopath with an unquenchable desire to inflict pain.
True, there are a few differences as well. Crucial is that additional plot strand. Bonus points for ambition but it is a strand too far. It complicates and slows down the action, which is unfortunate. It left this reader, at least, impatient at the mainly feeble characterisation and marvelling at the escalating implausibilities of the plot. You’ll still keep turning the pages (Coben is a skilful writer in at least that respect) but increasingly, it’s with frustration.
Master animator Chuck Jones once remarked about his films, “I don’t want things to be realistic. I want things to be believable.” Sorry, Mr Coben. You lost me here. I didn’t believe a word.