Tell No One
by Harlan Coben
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Book Reviews of Tell No One
Book Review: Tell No One
Summary: 5 Stars
They were bonded by such a fierce tie of love that when she was taken, his heart was ripped to shreds. David Beck chocked for eight years, smothered under a blanket of guilt. He had been there when she, his beloved Elizabeth, had been taken. He had heard her screams moments before the baseball bat hit him. If he had only swam across the moonlit lake with faster, sharper strokes, his life might still be whole, might still be worthwhile.
That fatal night, the thirteenth anniversary of their first kiss, is a whole burned permanently in Beck's mind, in his life, and in his heart. His soul mate was murdered by the infamous "Killroy", her flesh charred with the letter "K" he uses to mark his victims. Her body, found days after the abduction, was covered with cuts and bruises, her face grossly disfigured and beaten. The excruciating pain Beck has felt for eight years heightens when he receives a strange email on his office computer. It contains a phrase the two of them alone know, with a link to a street camera that shows him something he will never forget, something his eyes have been starved of for eight long, lonely years. And Beck has been warned to tell no one.
As if that isn't enough, the FBI has uncovered more evidence concerning Elizabeth's murder. Evidence that suggests that Beck was involved in more ways than just being an innocent bystander. Coincidences fall into place too neatly to be accidental. The cops begin to paint a false picture of Beck's guilt and thrown it at him, hard. This is too much pressure for a man who has lost his wife.
Harlen Coben has created a masterpiece of suspense and mystery. Contrary to what the story line may suggest, this is not a mushy love story. Beck is driven by hope and egged on by denial. He refuses to face the rational, he looks instead towards the unlikely chance that his wife is somehow still alive. This book has captured the very essence of thrill and tension. It has so many twists of plot and turns of fate that you won't know the truth until the last page. Laced with action and draped with secrets that could cost lives, teens and adults alike will be gripped with fear and overcome with joy when reading this enthralling novel. This book is highly recommended for everyone seeking suspense and mystery intertwined within a highly complex plot.
Book Review: Memories Hurt, the Good Ones MOST OF ALL.
Summary: 3 Stars
This looking-back memoir of a couple drawn together in an unusual manner shows how and why Dave didn't give up on seeing her again. Something only the duo knew kept him clinging tightly to the "tie that binds" the link between life and death. They'd been drawn close together at a young age and their puppy love expanded into real, not true love. He never ever gave in to showing grief as that would show beyoungt doube that she hadn't merely vanished and, for all purposes, would never surface again. Shortly after she vanished withough a sound, Dave discovered a message on his computer, something only he and she knew. He was warned to TELL NO ONE.
Beth always had held her head high, back straight. Beth and David were both bright kids, rational in the face of irrational love. Their first kiss was at the age of twelve; they married at age 25. Eight years earlier, Dave's wife had been abducted at Lake Charmaine, Michigan. Fifty years ago, this was the site of a rich-kids summer camp Christine may have hated. If the relationship could survive on the unspoken lies. On the 13th year after she was gone, nobody discovered, a strange happening occured. He would never have closure, so he married Beth, his first love and she took a place in the yearly pilgrimage and rituals to keep alive her memory good and bad.
Dave's therapist, John M. Randolph, urged him to try to forget that day, put it in comtemplation perspective the fact that it was over and done with, thatshe was gone for good,k but loving Beth with her melancholy moods like Meriweather Lewis long ago was alaive and willing to make him the man only she could bring alive and impatient for growth. He lacked the patience and experience of life, never able to bring fruition to t heir married life or joyful union behind closed doors. A premonition taunted his sensibility that the fault lay within him.
Actually, it was unresolved fears on the wife's conscience which caused the problem to prolong and grow into a hugh mountain with deep chasms to keep their secret under wraps. He may one day overcome his problem with the help of Beth, who had loved him her whole life. She was God's helpter, the angel sent to save thir marriage and life together. An unusual story told in an unusual way.
Book Review: Lots of twists don't make up for poor writing style
Summary: 2 Stars
Yes, the book is suspenseful and contains lots of semi-unforeseen plot twists, but Coben's writing style is annoyingly bad. The dialog is often clunky (real people just don't talk like that), characters (particularly African-American ones) are two-dimensional at best, and much of Coben's descriptions of his character's personal histories and feelings are cliched.
What makes this worse is that Coben *acknowledges* that his characters' feelings are cliche. About a dozen times in the book, he says something like, "And it's a cliche, but it's true..." or "It was just like you see on TV." At one point, he actually has a character say, "This is just like on 'The Practice.'" If I wanted to have the flat characters, settings, and plot of a TV show, I would watch TV. Books allow for far more subtlety and originality, and Coben fails to take advantage of his medium of choice. And he compounds this by explicitly falling back on the tired cliches of TV police dramas.
For these reasons, I found the book immensely frustrating. By way of comparison, I like a lot of Elmore Leonard's stuff, I like Patricia Highsmith, I loved all but the very end of Lehane's Mystic River, and I'm a big fan of Jonathan Lethem's "Motherless Brooklyn" and "Gun, With Occasional Music," both of which are much more fun and original and *truly* engaging than "Tell No One."
I realize that this is essentially beach/airplane reading, and not necessarily designed to be great literature. But my point is that Coben's writing style is occasionally so awkward that it makes the book frustrating, rather than fun, to read.
I can say a couple of positive things about this book: it is suspenseful, the plot twists are just predictable enough to make you feel like you could figure them out ahead of time if you think about them (a good things), it has a few visceral moments that really draw you in, and the use of two narrative perspectives is interesting and, for the most part, well executed.
BUT, this will be the last Harlan Coben novel I read, unless someone tells me his writing style has dramatically improved since he wrote this one.
Book Review: A fast paced thriller
Summary: 4 Stars
Eight years ago, Dr. David Beck seemed to have it all. Most of all, the love of his life, his wife Elizabeth. They had know each other since they were children and at the age of 12 had shared their first kiss and carved their initials in a tree at the lake front summer camp of David's grandfather. Every year since, they returned to that tree for their "kiss time" anniversary. Or they had until that night eight years ago, when they were attacked at the lake, David knocked unconscious and Elizabeth dragged away to her death at the hands of a serial killer, KillRoy.
Or was she?
On the anniversary of her murder, David receives an e-mail, making a reference to something only he and Elizabeth would understand. But how could it be? Her body was found, her killer is in jail. Is this some horrible joke? Is he going mad, wishing to believe something that is impossible or could, somehow, Elizabeth possibly be alive. He is warned to tell no one. Can he trust anyone to help him find the truth? The police, the FBI, his best friend since college, Shauna...will asking for their help put Elizabeth in more danger if she is alive and what price is David willing to pay to find out the truth of what happen that night.
This is the first one of Coben's books that I have read and a fine introduction to his work it is. It is a well written, fast paced thriller with enough action and twists and turns to keep you interested from the first page to the satisfying conclusion. And he also treats us to a good cast of characters to accompany us on the journey, characters that are never one dimension. There are good cops and bad, fine upstanding citizens that may have some very nasty secrets and even our "hero" David may have a few skeletons of his own that he would rather keep unknown. But the price of truth may have a very high cost that will play out until the very last page.
Overall, a satisfying, entertaining thriller that will certainly have me checking out some others of Mr. Coben books. Tell No One is a stand alone mystery but I am also anxious to check out his Myron Bolitar series, for which he is perhaps best known.
Book Review: Did I mention the flying saucer that landed in the back?
Summary: 3 Stars
I like Harlan Coben and gratefully, he will be around for a long time. I look forward to reading another Cobenesque tale, but not like this one. He is a master of plot, unfolding one surprise after another. The problem is that some of the surprises qualify as surprises only because they are completely unbelievable. Look at Alfred Hitchcock. He was successful because he took ordinary people like James Stewart (Rear Window) and Cary Grant (North by Northwest) from ordinary jobs (photographer; sales manager) and exposed them by accident to extraordinary events (witness to murder most foul; mistaken for a KGB counter agent). But they were ordinary folks and remained ordinary.
Dr. Beck seems to be disengenuous, almost dishonest. And what bothers me here, is that he is disengenuous with me, the reader, who plunked down X amount of dollars to listen to his story.
Let me give you an example. If I scrape the bumper of our car at the mall, I may forget to tell my wife; if the nordic blond secretary kisses me on the cheek for my birthday at the office, lacking any kamikaze-like inclinations, I may avoid telling my wife; if I take my sons to the Lions game, and they overhear some foul language from a row behind us, I may elect to not tell my wife. But if I see her boss robbing a bank, if I witness a shoot out between armed insurrectionists, these are things I'm going to share with my partner.
And Dr. Beck doesn't do that. He leaves things out, doesn't give her the information he ought to have. For someone that he has worshipped since the second grade, he witholds certain information from her.
She is murdered he believes and he still weeps for her 8 years later but they had secrets from eachother. I think the simplest but honest relationships wouldn't keep those kinds of secrets from their spouse.
It's a good action read. Lots of twists. I'm left with the feeling that it was written for another medium that absolutely pays no attention to logic, ergo the movies.
I'll read Mr. Coben again but frankly I was disappointed. Not even sure I liked the characters.