The New York Daily News, on Coben's No Second Chance: "The author doesn't build suspense. HE OPENS FIRE."
For some reason, I wasn't as enthralled by this novel as I was by the first Harlan Coben novel I read (see previous post). Oh, I could hardly put it down, (meaning it's a good read), but the twists and turns became so plentiful and torturous that I could barely keep track (meaning I couldn't detect what was really going on). Who was the kidnapper? Who was the murderer? Who was the hero? This is both the charm and the irritant of the Harlan Coben style. Frustration v. Resolution?
This book is about parenthood and friendship. And, I guess it is also about romantic love v. married love. It's about telling the truth and living with the existence of deceptions perpetrated by those we love and are involved in.
I like the way that the author hooks you from the first sentence, "When the first bullet hit my chest, I thought of my daughter." Then, like so many of my second guessing thoughts, the protagonist opines, "At least, that is what I want to believe". This makes the good doctor (a "plastic" surgeon) so down to earth, so likable, so human. I like that about Coben; his characters are so like real people. Real people in unthinkable circumstances, but real, nevertheless.
Another thing I like about Coben is his descriptive passages. In describing a police detective who had come into his hospital room to interview him, he writes:
"His head was too big for his shoulders so that you feared his neck would collapse from the weight of it. His hair was crew cut all around, except in the front, where it hung down in a Caesar line above his eyes. A soul patch, an ugly smear of growth, sat on his chin like a burrowing insect. All in all, he looked like a member of a boy band gone to serious seed."
I will take a rest from the action packed thriller genre for a while, but when I am back in the mood for an exciting, unpredictable, page-turning read, I will pick up one of Harlan Corben's previous two books, Gone for Good and Tell No One, and perhaps a highlighter for marking passages too good to go unremembered.
