Home by Harlan Coben

Published by Dutton on September 20, 2016

The last couple of Harlan Coben novels I read were stand-alones. They were enjoyable but not fully satisfying. In Home, Coben returned to the Myron Bolitar series. He has also returned to form.

Win Lockwood is searching for two boys, kidnapped in New Jersey, who have been missing for ten years. He’s related to one of them. When he finally spots the other boy, three thugs get in his way. Three dead thugs later, the boy is gone, prompting Win to call Myron Bolitar for help.

Harlan Coben doesn’t usually write jaw-dropping prose, although he occasionally comes up with something clever (“a purple top so tight it could have been sausage casing”). Coben does, however, knows how to keep a story moving, and that’s good enough for a thriller, provided the story is interesting. “Interesting” isn’t a sufficiently forceful word to describe the plot of Home. The captivating story keeps the reader emotionally involved while pondering the fate of the two boys.

The parents of each boy are believable characters. Each parent is obviously the victim of tragedy, but the full nature of their respective tragedies isn’t known until the story concludes. The strongest characters, of course, are Win and Myron, each of whom evolves a bit by the time the story ends. Mickey Bolitar, Myron’s nephew (and the central character in a young adult series), plays a supporting role, along with his friends Ema and Spoon. Win’s cross-dressing buddy Zorra adds a note of comic relief to the story when he isn’t causing mayhem.

The plot needs that comic relief because it is quite intense. Coben builds suspense until he delivers a startling conclusion that resolves the mystery. The climax is emotionally satisfying.

Unlike most modern thrillers, Coben managed to tell a compelling story without overreaching, without relying on implausible coincidence, and without following a formula. I’m glad to see that Coben got his groove back in Home.

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