Think Twice by Harlan Coben

Published by Grand Central Publishing on May 14, 2024

When Harlan Coben writes standalone novels, the results are hit-or-miss. When he writes Myron Bolitar novels, Coben ups his game.

Bolitar was a star player in college basketball. His pro career was immediately ended by an injury. He compensated by earning a law degree and becoming a sports agent. His career has moved in varying directions, but he is again working with his best friend, the almost equally athletic Win Lockwood. Bolitar and Lockwood have a knack for getting into trouble.

Think Twice is a serial killer novel. There are way more serial killer novels than there are serial killers, but the reading public’s appetite for fictional serial killers seems insatiable. I give Coben credit for making the serial killer theme fresh and interesting in Think Twice. The novel’s serial killer avoids detection and capture by framing someone else for each of the murders. Since the killings have no obvious connection and since cops will almost always fall for a frame (it’s easier to draw seemingly obvious conclusions than to conduct a full investigation), the killer has had a successful run.

Bolitar gets involved when the police show up at his office, demanding to know the location of Greg Downing. Bolitar believes Downing was cremated after his death three years earlier, making his location difficult to pinpoint. The police nevertheless suspect that Downing has committed a series of murders. Because DNA tests suggest that Downing’s skin was found beneath the fingernails of a recently murdered supermodel, Bolitar is prompted to look into Downing’s death.

It’s not a spoiler to reveal that Downing is still alive and has married a woman named Grace. It would be a spoiler to reveal whether Downing is the serial killer the police believe him to be.

Downing was a frenemy of Bolitar, a competitor on the basketball court who made his way to the NBA, stole Bolitar’s girlfriend (Emily), and had something to do with the injury that ended Bolitar’s career. Downing disappeared to Asia before (as far as the world knows) he died.

To find Downing, Bolitar and Lockwood follow a series of clues that lead them to a gay man named Bo with whom Downing was exchanging flirtatious messages. Bo’s boyfriend was also a murder victim. Could he have been another of Downing’s victim? The body count will increase before the plot resolves.

Bolitar also connects with his biological son, who was conceived by Emily the night before she married Downing. Neither Downing nor Bolitar are models of exemplary behavior, but they are partially redeemed by their guilty consciences and attempts to atone.

Lockwood makes fun of Bolitar’s tendency to examine the moral implications of competing choices (Lockwood tends to simplify moral issues by killing the bad guys), but Bolitar is a more interesting character because he considers (or overthinks) the consequences of his actions. I appreciate the recognition of moral ambiguity that most tough guy novels lack. Bolitar tries to practice forgiveness in his relationship with Downing, for example, but are there some betrayals that do not deserve forgiveness?

The plot has multiple threads, enough to hold the reader’s attention and perhaps challenge the reader to remember details. The ending, including a final twist, is surprising. Coben ties the threads together neatly at the end, but not too neatly. Coben recognizes that full truths are rarely known and deliberately leaves a few minor questions unanswered.

As the novel moves toward its ending, the story creates palpable tension as a key character is endangered. A moving chapter near the end may change the direction of future novels. Kudos to Coben for having the courage to shake up a popular series.

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I Will Find You by Harlan Coben

Published by Grand Central Publishing on March 14, 2023

I Will Find You sounds like a line from a movie delivered with threatening force by Liam Neeson or with understated assurance by Daniel Day Lewis. The unfortunate title aside, I Will Find You is a creative marriage of the “missing child” thriller and the “wrongly accused prisoner” story.

David Burroughs didn’t put up much of a defense when he was accused of taking a bat to his three-year-old son’s face and literally beating his brains out. David’s wife Cheryl was working the night shift at a hospital. All David recalls is drinking too much, passing out, and waking up to find Matthew’s unrecognizable body. He has no recollection of committing the crime, but he blames himself for not protecting his son and feels he deserves a life in prison. Nor does he recall burying the bat in his yard, despite his neighbor’s testimony that she saw him do it.

David is five years into his bit when Rachel, his former sister-in-law, visits him for the first time. She shows David a photograph taken at an amusement park. In the background is an eight-year-old kid who has Matthew’s distinctive facial birthmark. Could David have been framed for a murder he didn’t commit and, if so, who is the dead kid in his bedroom?

That’s a reasonably good thriller premise despite the holes that keep the story from being a smooth ride. It’s no less plausible than the average modern thriller, meaning not very plausible at all. Harlen Coben overcomes those problems by keeping the story in motion, leaving the reader with little time to say, “Hey, wait a minute.” Coben makes a valiant and reasonably clever attempt to explain the mystery while tying up most of the loose ends.

Naturally, David needs to bust out of prison, a problem that becomes more urgent after one of the guards tries to kill him. It seems that someone wants David to die before he learns the truth. Fortunately, the break-out isn’t difficult, thanks to the happy coincidence that the warden is David’s godfather. The warden isn’t convinced that Matthew is still alive but he also doesn’t want David to be murdered in prison.

David is assisted in his version of the search for a one-armed man by Rachel, the only other person who believes Matthew is still alive. Rachel has some baggage of her own, having sacrificed her career as a journalist by pushing a rape victim to tell her story, leading to a regrettable result. Cheryl has remarried and doesn’t want to think about Matthew, leading to a confrontation between the two troubled siblings.

Starting with the woman who testified about the buried bat, David and Rachel move from clue to clue. The plot twists nicely when David realizes that finding the person who framed him won’t necessarily help him find the kidnapper.

Harlan Coben’s standalone novels tend to be hit or miss with me. About half are misses. Constant motion, adequate attention to characterization, and clever plotting move I Will Find You into the hit category. David never actually says “I will find you,” making it unnecessary to decide whether Neeson or Lewis should play his part if the book is filmed.

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The Match by Harlan Coben

Published by Grand Central Publishing on March 15, 2022

The Match uses reality TV as its hook. The story imagines a show that is a cross between The Bachelor and Survivor, a show apparently inspired by Pat Benatar’s classic song, “Love Is a Battlefield.”

Peter Bennett was a popular participant in the show. He wooed and conquered Jenn Cassidy. They became a popular reality TV couple. Their fame led to endorsement deals and countless freebies. Accusations that Peter roofied and slept with his Jenn’s sister put an end to his marriage and to his TV popularity. Sexually assaulting your in-laws doesn’t earn “likes.” Peter disappeared after his followers chose not to believe his denials. All of that is an interesting background, particularly for reality TV fans who understand that reality TV is completely divorced from reality.

At some point, Peter contacted Wilde through a DNA-match site. Peter and Wilde both submitted DNA samples to the site, which determined that they are close relatives. Wilde, a character Harlan Coben premiered in The Boy in the Woods, was apparently left in the woods as a small child. He has no memory of how he got there. He’s never explored his ancestry but people who are close to him have repeatedly nagged him to figure out how he came to be abandoned and how he survived. Peter’s message — a message that Wilde didn’t see because for months he was off on a frolic of his own — suggests that Peter is in trouble and needs Wilde’s help.

In addition to reality TV, the story is driven by the theme of cyberbullying. Peter is a natural target of trolls who feel justified targeting anyone they decide to dislike. Coben adds a twist to that theme by imagining a vigilante group of hackers called Boomerang. Boomerang punishes trolls and online bullies, sometimes by doxing them. Boomerang members do not know the identities of the other members. When the members notice that some of the trolls they took action against have been murdered, Boomerang enters crisis mode.

Coben usually constructs decent plots. The Match is one of his better efforts. Its about as credible as the plots of most modern thrillers (not very) but multiple killings and multiple clues about the killer keep Wilde (and the reader) guessing.  The ending is a bit contrived but Wilde at least finds a plausible answer to a key question about his origin.

While Coben isn’t a great prose stylist, his limitations are less noticeable in The Match than in some of his other books. He gives his characters snappy dialog and keeps the plot moving. Wilde is an unsurprising character. He raised himself in the woods, so he prefers to be alone unless he’s having sex. That’s an easy personality to image but it such a limited personality that characterization isn’t a draw for the Wilde novels. That begins to change at the end of novel, so the next book (if another one is coming) might broaden Wilde's horizons. My preference would be for Coben to write another Myron Bolitar novel, but I can’t bend the man to my will, so we’ll just have to see what he does next.

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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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The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben

Published by Grand Central Publishing on March 17, 2020

Harlan Coben seems to alternate between novels that are so-so and novels that are pretty good. The Boy from the Woods falls into the “pretty good” category. Since his last Myron Bolitar novel in 2016, he’s focused on writing stand-alones. The Boy from the Woods is a stand-alone at the moment, but the book sets up some mysteries about the protagonist’s past that invite resolution in future novels.

The Boy from the Woods imagines a senator named Rusty Eggers who is running for president. Eggers claims he wants to rebuild the country when he is only capable of pulling it apart. His rhetoric makes him popular with low-information voters while forcing everyone to choose a side instead of coming together as a nation.

The novel’s star, however, is a mysterious fellow who is aptly named Wilde — apt because he was discovered at the approximate age of six living by himself in a state forest. Since Wilde had no childhood memory of anything other than living in the woods, he believes he lived there for years until he befriended another child named David. That doesn’t seem plausible, but as events unfold, Coben sold me on the premise.

Wilde eventually went into foster care, but as an adult has continued to live in the woods, sheltered by an eco pod. David’s mother Hester has not seen much of Wilde in the six years following his involvement in a car crash that killed David. David married a woman named Laila and had a son named Matthew. Wilde is Matthew’s godfather. Sometimes he stays overnight with Laila, who keeps her distance from Wilde when she’s not using him for comfort. The relationships in this book are complicated, but they are not far-fetched.

Matthew becomes concerned about a classmate named Naomi Pine, who is always being bullied by popular kids, including Crash Maynard, whose father Dash is a documentarian. Naomi was placed for adoption by a biological mother she never knew, which gives her a bond with Wilde. The plot kicks off when Naomi disappears and ratchets up when Crash disappears. At least one of those disappearances seems to be related to pressure that Dash is receiving to release a rumored tape that shows the kind of wrongdoing that might bring down Senator Eggers. As a favor to Matthew, Wilde goes looking for Naomi, whose teacher happens to be another woman with whom Wilde has kept company at night.

I’m particularly impressed with the way the story imagines Eggers’ ability to manage obvious evidence of his unsuitability for office by denying and deflecting. Bots attack social media in ways that change the public's focus. He has bots call the evidence fake news. He has bots fabricate defenses that paint him as a victim. He has bots assert that damaging videos were obviously photoshopped. He has one set of bots make social media comments that appeal to the right and another set of bots make social media comments that appeal to the left. Then he has the bots attack each other while he stands aside and waits for a new controversy to occupy the public’s attention. So it goes in the age of easily manipulated social media.

To his credit, Coben avoided the outlandish plot development that often mars thrillers, including some of his own. The facts twist at the end, revealing a surprise in what otherwise might have been a predictable story. Another surprise follows, this one a little too manipulative, but it deals with a collateral plot thread and doesn’t overwhelm the story. The central plotline is believable, and all the more entertaining because it is convincing. Wilde has an air of mystery that substitutes for a personality (he’s a strong, silent type). I expect his personality to grow, much as Myron Bolitar’s did, as more novels explore Wilde’s past. On the strength of The Boy from the Woods, I am optimistic that those novels will be worth reading.

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