Promise me you won't write another book
PROMISE ME by Harlan Coben, Orion, pp454, ISBN-13 9780752879253
Harlan Coben has written thirteen books in eleven years. Promise Me, the thirteenth, is a mystery thriller which tells the story of two missing girls whose disappearances are strangely connected. Myron Bolitar, in his eighth recurrence as protagonist in Mr Coben's novels, sets out to solve the mystery and bring back the missing girls.
Mr Coben's 14th book, The Woods is already being promoted. Although the speed at which an author writes, or produces books for that matter, should not be grounds for judging book quality, sadly Mr Coben's Promise Me did not strike me as a book which was the upshot of much thought.
Don't get me wrong, the plot is bursting with original characters, seedy thugs, voluptuous women, transvestites, sexy teenagers, geeky boys, plain housewives and dashingly built men. The reader battles with issues such as racism, domestic violence, love-affairs, sons fighting in the Iraq war, drug-dealing, murders, broken marriages, friendships, the unexpected return of bodacious lovers, exciting ball games, bribery and corruption, abductions, full-throttle brawls. Mr Coben also includes excerpts from MSN conversations and the sound of songs by Coldplay and Alanis Morisette heard both on the radio and in Spanish interpretations by a character who translates and transposes as he recalls random verses from the songs. Indeed I'd be surprised if any page-turner ingredients were missing from this novel whose unifying theme is promises kept and broken.
So, let the promises begin. The novel opens with a gripping first few chapters. Indeed one is curious to find out why Myron is so keen to get two girls, Aimee and Erin, to promise him that they would never get into a car with a drunk driver. A false presumption, for this is not going to be the motivation behind the story. As fate would have it, Aimee keeps her promise and phones Myron one night, asking him for a lift. Myron complies and delivers Aimee to her requested destination. Time passes and we learn that Aimee has gone missing. So much for keeping promises. More promises are made as Myron undertakes the task of getting Aimee back. 400 pages of sweat, blood, spit and semen ensue.
Unfortunately mystery and intrigue do not. The story runs like a cheap Hollywood movie which forces clichés left, right and centre down the reader's throat. Sadly the following dying-marriage scene failed to impress:
"[The wife] stood by the kitchen sink and stared at the stranger she called a husband. [He] was eating a sandwich carefully, his tie tucked into his shirt. There was a newspaper perfectly folded into one quarter. He chewed slowly. He wore cuff links. His shirt was starched. He liked starch. He liked everything ironed." (82)
We've "seen" this scene far too many times to accept it at face value without it being made to work in some original way. Mr Coben doesn't deliver. The attempts at humour are even more embarrassing and left me cringing or staring at the page in disbelief that anyone could buy a sentence like "you change partners like a Cineplex changes movies" or the one about the character who had drunk so much coffee ("and thus caffeine" - just in case you were worried that it might be decaf) she could be "wired for sound".
Mr Coben does pull off a few, rare funny ones like the description of the multi-talented Zorra, the stilettoed transvestite and former Mossad spy. "Many transvestites are lovely. Zorra was not one of them." And some of the hidden information we discover at the end of the novel are not without clever irony. Sadly there isn't enough substance to plump up the novel.
Harlan Coben is a bestselling author. Hats off to his marketing team.
• Ms Stivala graduated with a first class degree in English from the University of Malta. She is currently reading for a Masters degree in Comparative Literature at the University of Edinburgh and can't waste any more time reading Mr Coben.
• A review copy of this title was supplied by Agenda Bookshop.
Mr Coben's 14th book, The Woods is already being promoted. Although the speed at which an author writes, or produces books for that matter, should not be grounds for judging book quality, sadly Mr Coben's Promise Me did not strike me as a book which was the upshot of much thought.
Don't get me wrong, the plot is bursting with original characters, seedy thugs, voluptuous women, transvestites, sexy teenagers, geeky boys, plain housewives and dashingly built men. The reader battles with issues such as racism, domestic violence, love-affairs, sons fighting in the Iraq war, drug-dealing, murders, broken marriages, friendships, the unexpected return of bodacious lovers, exciting ball games, bribery and corruption, abductions, full-throttle brawls. Mr Coben also includes excerpts from MSN conversations and the sound of songs by Coldplay and Alanis Morisette heard both on the radio and in Spanish interpretations by a character who translates and transposes as he recalls random verses from the songs. Indeed I'd be surprised if any page-turner ingredients were missing from this novel whose unifying theme is promises kept and broken.
So, let the promises begin. The novel opens with a gripping first few chapters. Indeed one is curious to find out why Myron is so keen to get two girls, Aimee and Erin, to promise him that they would never get into a car with a drunk driver. A false presumption, for this is not going to be the motivation behind the story. As fate would have it, Aimee keeps her promise and phones Myron one night, asking him for a lift. Myron complies and delivers Aimee to her requested destination. Time passes and we learn that Aimee has gone missing. So much for keeping promises. More promises are made as Myron undertakes the task of getting Aimee back. 400 pages of sweat, blood, spit and semen ensue.
Unfortunately mystery and intrigue do not. The story runs like a cheap Hollywood movie which forces clichés left, right and centre down the reader's throat. Sadly the following dying-marriage scene failed to impress:
"[The wife] stood by the kitchen sink and stared at the stranger she called a husband. [He] was eating a sandwich carefully, his tie tucked into his shirt. There was a newspaper perfectly folded into one quarter. He chewed slowly. He wore cuff links. His shirt was starched. He liked starch. He liked everything ironed." (82)
We've "seen" this scene far too many times to accept it at face value without it being made to work in some original way. Mr Coben doesn't deliver. The attempts at humour are even more embarrassing and left me cringing or staring at the page in disbelief that anyone could buy a sentence like "you change partners like a Cineplex changes movies" or the one about the character who had drunk so much coffee ("and thus caffeine" - just in case you were worried that it might be decaf) she could be "wired for sound".
Mr Coben does pull off a few, rare funny ones like the description of the multi-talented Zorra, the stilettoed transvestite and former Mossad spy. "Many transvestites are lovely. Zorra was not one of them." And some of the hidden information we discover at the end of the novel are not without clever irony. Sadly there isn't enough substance to plump up the novel.
Harlan Coben is a bestselling author. Hats off to his marketing team.
• Ms Stivala graduated with a first class degree in English from the University of Malta. She is currently reading for a Masters degree in Comparative Literature at the University of Edinburgh and can't waste any more time reading Mr Coben.
• A review copy of this title was supplied by Agenda Bookshop.