Win by Harlan Coben

Published by Grand Central Publishing on March 16, 2021

Remember those crazy protesters who were flinging Molotov cocktails around in the early 1970s? You probably don’t because there were too few to remember. The story told in Win imagines a group called the Jane Street 6, perhaps very loosely based on the Chicago 7. The Jane Street 6 threw two Molotov cocktails at an empty building during a protest. An errant throw frightened a bus driver who drove into river, killing his passengers. Authorities were quick to blame the "hippy" protesters for the bus driver’s careless failure to maintain control of his bus, but that’s neither here nor there. The Jane Street 6 disappeared, amazing the public with their ability to remain hidden, except for one who reappeared, served a brief sentence, and disappeared again.

Flash forward to the present. A man is murdered in a luxury New York City apartment. The victim had possession of an expensive painting that was stolen from the Lockwood family. Circumstances bring Windsor Home Lockwood III into the investigation, in part because a suitcase believed to be his is found at the murder scene, making him a potential suspect. The murder victim turns out to be Ry Strauss, one of the Jane Street 6.

We soon learn that Patricia Lockwood, the daughter of the younger brother of Win’s father, was abducted when she was eighteen and held in a building where multiple young women had been tortured and murdered. Her father was killed during her abduction and two Lockwood paintings disappeared from the family estate. The reappearance of a painting in Strauss’ apartment suggests that he had some involvement in the abduction and perhaps the torture of multiple young women decades earlier.

The story follows Win as he tries to piece together the connections between the art theft, his sister’s abduction, and the fates of the various members of the Jane Street 6. Win’s investigative efforts bring him into contact with a couple of people, including a member of the underworld, who have a reason to seek revenge for the inadvertent deaths associated with the Jane Street 6. Making all the connections entails a fair amount of legwork, distracting Win from his normal routine of shagging rich women and beating up people who, in his judgment, deserve a good beating. He eventually uncovers family secrets that surprise him — not that he is particularly bothered by unpleasant surprises, as any aspect of life that doesn’t have a direct impact on his pursuit of gratification barely registers with him.

Fortunately, I don’t necessarily need to like the characters to like a book. If Win were real, I would dislike him intensely. He’s smug, self-righteous, and he answers the phone by saying “Articulate.” How annoying is that? He excuses all sorts of morally unsound behavior by claiming that life is full of gray areas about which we make judgment calls. I agree with that but disagree that gray areas excuse mayhem. His philosophy of life is based largely on “I’m important and you’re not” coupled with “might makes right,” although only when he is the one who exercises the might. Win is a friend of Myron Bolitar, a Harlan Coben character I really like, and I frankly don’t understand why someone like Bolitar wouldn’t detest someone like Win. But they aren’t real people and they have been fictional buddies for years, so I’m not going to fret about it.

It is enough for me that Coben, an inconsistent storyteller, assembled a clever and reasonably credible puzzle in Win. And Win Lockwood is admittedly an interesting character, if only because he’s irritating and a bit loathsome but not quite reprehensible. His presence is tolerable as long as he advances the plot, and he manages to carry the story forward at a steady pace. Win is in many ways enjoyable, but I’ve been waiting five years for a new Myron Bolitar novel. While Win is a decent supporting character in a Bolitar novel, I’d rather spend my time with Bolitar.

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