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Adult Books - Fiction - Crime Fiction - Mystery
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Promise Me.
Coben, Harlan (author).
Apr. 2006. 384p. Dutton, hardcover, $26.95 (0-525-94949-6).
REVIEW.
First published April 1, 2006 (Booklist).
Coben, the reigning master of clockwork suspense, and winner of the trifecta of mystery-writing honors—the Edgar, the Agatha, and the Shamus—produces a fascinating hybrid thriller here. Coben began his career writing detective novels starring Myron Bolitar, an ex-Celtics basketball player turned entertainment agent. For the past six years, he has concentrated on stand-alone thrillers. Coben’s novels are noted for their use of technology, both as weapons used against the innocent and as ways for victims to escape their tormentors, usually with a clock ticking ominously in the background. In Promise Me, Coben skillfully grafts this deadline suspense onto the career of his series hero, Bolitar. As in his stand-alones, the novel starts with a purely domestic situation—at a party in his home, attended by friends and their offspring, Bolitar overhears two teen girls talking about driving home drunk from parties. Stung by his own memory of a high-school friend who died in a car crash, Bolitar makes the girls promise to contact him if they ever need a lift or are in trouble. The call does come a few nights later. Myron drives the caller to a friend’s house, but she ends up disappearing, and guilt-ridden Myron must use all his resources to try to find what happened. Coben’s resurrection of Bolitar works superbly: the melding of high suspense and high technology with a somewhat battered, very canny, questing hero is sure to produce another major hit for the way-hot Coben. — Connie Fletcher
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