The Final Detail (Myron Bolitar)
by Harlan Coben
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Book Reviews of The Final Detail (Myron Bolitar)
Book Review: Never Saw it Coming ...
Summary: 3 Stars
After reading most of his more recent works, I have become a BIG Harlan Coben fan. Gone For Good, Tell No One, Just One Look are three of the best books I have read in a long time. Hungry for more Coben, I went back to read some of his earlier work, picking up The Final Detail.
While I found the book enjoyable to read, it is not as satisfying as his more recent books. The protagonist, sports agent Myron Bolitar, is a well-developed, sypmathetic character, and it is fun to follow him on his rather improbable adventures. But I found many of the other characters in the book to be more cartoonish and less believable. The biggest disappointment for me was the conclusion which smacked a bit of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. While it was a tidy conclusion, it was unsatisfying because the reader had no hints of what the outcome would be. Rather than "Oh my! Of course that's what happened! Why didn't I see it!" the reader is left scratching his head and wondering why Coben wrote a conclusion that did not flow logically from what had gone before.
I am eagerly looking forward to reading Coben's next book (The Innocent), but doubt that I'll be reading any more of the Myron Bolitar books.
Book Review: A So-So Thriller
Summary: 3 Stars
Not realizing this is a continuing series, I picked up this novel and started to read it. It is pretty good on its own, however, you need to read some of the prior Myron Bolitar books to understand the depth of the main characters.
Myron Bolitar is a sports agent (can you say Arlis?) who seems to be a type of amateur detective who is aided by his friend Win. Win is a "Bruce Wayne/Darknight" type. That is, he has incredible wealth and resources at his disposal and he is an extremely dangerous individual that even the mob is afraid of.
In this story, Myron is away on a secret vacation in some unknown island in the Caribbean. While he is away, a baseball player he represents has a series of misfortunes happen to him and is apparently murdered by one of Myron's employees (Esperanza).
The rest of the story plays out with Myron trying to prove that Esperanza is innocent and learn the truth of how the baseball player died. This is a so-so thriller and you really have to have had an affinity for the main characters to begin with to really like this book. I give it slightly more than three stars.
Book Review: My first book by this author but not my last - a great novel
Summary: 4 Stars
Myron Bolivar a sports agent has disappeared. Two weeks later his closest friend, Win, manages to find him on a remote island in the Caribbean and interrupts his secret vacation. Byron sees Win approaching on a boat and tells Terese, a luscious brunette and anchorwoman for CNN that he met just weeks before, that it must be important for Win to have tracked him down. Later Myron finds out that - a client has been killed - his partner has been arrested for the murder and will not talk to him - clients are jumping ship and going to another agency, and Myron detects that someone is watching his every move. This dangerous and twisted tale follows leads back twelve years to totally discover and understand how all the pieces fit together.
An excellent book that draws you into the middle of the action. You are there. You see it. You feel the emotions. I tried to warn Myron several times but he didn't hear me and then Win appears out of nowhere to rescue him.
If you like multiple layers of suspense where each layer points in a different direction then this book is for you.
al-Qaeda Strikes Again
Book Review: Typically Coben
Summary: 4 Stars
Myron Bolitar was in his 30's,had an apartment in New York City, a former basketball player with promise, a Harvard Law School graduate, had his own sports agency and in general was a nice likeable young man who remembered his Jewish upbringing in New Jersey. The kind of guy whose mothers friends would want to fix up with suitable females. Myron's best friend was the shrewd, wealthy, waspy and ruthless Windsor Horn Lockwood, III. Myron dropped away for a quiet retreat on a Caribbean private island with a beautiful cable tv anchor. All hell broke loose in his absence. It seemed as though his partner Esperanza Diaz had murdered his number 1 client, a baseball pitcher trying to make a comeback overcoming past drug problems. Plenty of action along the way. There are baseball team owners who have their own strange agenda, the missing daughter of the same said baseball team owners as well as a competitive sports agency trying to take away Myron's clients. As one has come to expect from Cobin
another quick moving solid read.
Book Review: Might Be Coben's Finest
Summary: 5 Stars
In 'The Final Detail' Coben provides us with the strongest Myron Bolitor story yet, and that's saying something. Bolitor, as always, is an engaging hero. The story provides abundant internal strife for Myron on both a professional and personal level. But, playing the role of hero to perfection, Myron doesn't falter and uncovers the truth.
Outside of Myron, the story provides a heavy dose of Win, and we're rewarded with his best performance yet. Up until this book, Win was probably my least favorite recurring character in the series. Not any more. In 'The Final Detail', Win achieves status as a first rate character worthy of his status alongside Myron.
The plot flows well, and the stroy is multi-layered. Twists and turns are present of course, but they add to the story and are not simply used as gimmicks to confuse the reader. Humor is used well, as is angst. Coben never fails the reader, and the Bolitor series is especially strong. I'm anxious to move on to the next in the series.