Darkest Fear (Myron Bolitar Mysteries)

Darkest Fear represents an interesting transition between Coben's comparatively lightweight and formulaic early novels and his more recent, nervier...more

Darkest Fear represents an interesting transition between Coben's comparatively lightweight and formulaic early novels and his more recent, nervier and darker novels such as Tell No One and Gone for Good. It is part of the series dealing with the misadventures of Myron Bolitar, sports agent and occasional investigator, but this time Myron has more than the convenience of his clients on his mind. An old girlfriend turns up with the revelation that her son is dying for a bone-marrow transplant--and that the son is his. Myron has always had an overdeveloped sense of personal responsibility and this time it goes into overdrive. He, and his efficiently violent friend Win, find themselves involved with one of the richest and most secretive families in America, with a particularly brutal serial kidnapper and murderer and with the FBI on one of its off days. Coben takes his wise-cracking series hero and puts him in real physical and emotional jeopardy--the book is impressive, and a decisive break with the formula he had established earlier. After this, gloomier and more dangerous books were inevitable, and protagonists less fundamentally cheerful than the ebullient Myron. --Roz Kaveney   less