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Tuesday, 6 June 2023

THE INNOCENT - Book review

 


Harlan Coben’s 2005 thriller is as good as any of the other standalone novels of his I have read. He keeps you turning the pages as the plot twists and characters interact.

It begins with a flashback of Matt Hunter’s. He was involved in a brawl and his opponent died. It might have been an accident; Matt served four years in a penitentiary. When he got out, he joined his brother’s law firm and met the beautiful Olivia and they married. Everything was better than he could have hoped – until he received a mysterious phone call and his life began to spiral out of control.

Besides contending with a local cop who held a grudge, Matt has to cope with the suspicion that Olivia is having an affair with a stranger. And it seems that Matt is of considerable interest to two certain not particularly scrupulous FBI agents…

‘Matt realised that he needed the help of a private detective at the MVD agency. ‘By and large, Matt was not a fan of PIs. In fiction they were cool dudes. In reality they were, at best, retired (emphasis on the ‘tired’) cops, and at worst, guys who couldn’t become cops and thus are that dangerous creation known as the “cop wannabe”. Matt had seen plenty of wannabes working as prison guards. The mixture of failure and imagined testosterone produced volatile and often ugly consequences’ (p69).

However this PI was an exception: ‘the lovely and controversial Ms Cingle Shaker.' He tasked her with finding out about the anonymous phone caller… ‘…she wore a black turtleneck that on some women would be considered clingy but on Cingle could legitimately draw a citation for indecency’ (p70).

The past catches up in ways we hadn’t guessed at in our wildest imaginings. A past that tests his love for his wife.

To comment further would require spoilers. So, in conclusion, this is a complex tale, well told!

If you’ve read Coben already, you know what to expect – twists and surprises; if you haven’t, this is as good a place as any to make your acquaintance with his work.

As book covers go, this is atrocious in my opinion.

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