The Innocent by Harlan Coben Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $1.49 You Save: $25.46 (94%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Innocent
Book Review: Coben Keeps Throwing Strikes
Summary: 5 Stars
Consistent. To some, that may imply boredom and predictability. In the hands of Consistent Coben, we find a whole new implication: family relationships, surprise endings and plot twists, suburban settings hiding men's dark deeds.
"The Innocent" follows Matt Hunter, a man bearing the guilt of murder, but trying to start over. Just as things seem to be settling into normalcy--a new home, a beautiful wife, and a baby on the way--ghosts from his past begin to reimerge. And, most pressing, he must face questions of his wife's fidelity.
Coben's last effort, "Just One Look," seemed a bit forced. He'd thrown us two fantastic speedballs ("Tell No One" and "Gone for Good"), and another decent change-up ("No Second Chance"), but I had to wonder if he was feeling the pressure. Or, even worse, running out of ideas. No need to fear. "The Innocent" proves that Coben's consistency can be counted on. Even expecting the twists, I found myself surprised. Even knowing of his penchant for touching family moments, I was moved by some of the final scenes. One in particular, between Loren Muse and her mother, was beautifully nuanced.
Put Coben on the pitcher's mound and you can count on a winning pitch. He hasn't lost his touch. If anything, he's polished up some old tricks and added a few new ones to his repertoire.
***Don't bypass the short story at the end of the book. It'll leave you scratching your head, then smiling. Cleverly done.***
Book Review: Coben at His Best
Summary: 5 Stars
In the first twenty pages all you get is an innocent murder "you" committed, a nun with breast implants, a Reno stripper, FBI agents who don't look good and more is still to come! Coben gets the reader enthralled immediately.
This is a mystery with several intertwined mysteries going at once and several characters proceeding in several directions, yet also all entwined - a delicious mix, especially when stirred with good writing. At times, Coben came perilously close to overdoing it, but he never passed over the razor thin line between head-scratching and hair-pulling. The plot worked and did not get over the top.
We have the ex-con, who really isn't a con, a county inspector, the FBI, and an Amazon private detective, all in the hunt (with a few helpers to boot) for what first appears to be a murder, then two murders connected, then a third. All get tied together in the end. At about page fifty, the reader is afraid he has at least some of it solved. Fear not. Nothing is as it seems.
Simply put, this is a great mystery with twists and turns taken by a few different threads.
What adds to this book is Coben's characters. They all have depth, a rarity in a genre where one is happy if the main character has some depth. There is not a single cardboard cutout character. They all have feelings, flaws and strengths. This book actually has three characters you want to root for, yet they are not perfect, nor even close to it. For that reason, there are times you really have to doubt them - which just adds to the mystery. The primary bad guys are not all bad. Their motivations are understandable, which makes them human.
This is a page turner and great mystery. Highly recommended, I think this is Coben's best and certainly much better than his last.
Book Review: Coben comes up aces!!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
BY FAR, THE FASTEST, MOST INTENSE THRILL FROM COBEN.....PICK UP THIS BOOK AND YOULL BE SO INTO IT, YOULL SKIP SLEEP TONIGHT TO FINISH IT.Book Review: Coben continues the quality with the Innocent, a great book
Summary: 5 Stars
Matt Hunter is the lead character in this recent novel by Harlen Coben, The Innocent. After finding out his wife Olivia is pregnant, he gets a picture and a short movie clip on his camera phone while she is out of town on business. The picture and video seem to indicate Olivia is having an affair. But is she? Olivia was the icing on the cake for Matt as he slowly rebuilt his life after serving time for manslaughter. Now, his name is turning up as a suspect in a nun's murder as well as a few other murders as well.
I listened to this book on audio tape and enjoyed it very much. Matt's POV is 3rd person as opposed to the protaganist being in first person in Gone for Good and No Second Chance. This book zips along and has plenty of twists and turns with plenty of deep dark secrets to be discovered.
What would you do if you received pictures of your spouse on your cell phone indicating you might be cheating on you? Matt hires a private detective to get to the bottom of things. Matt has reasons to believe the pictures might not be all that they seem. SPOILER PROBLEM. The pictures and Olivia'a guilt or innocence are a key part of the story, yet the summary on the back of the audio book and the inside flap of the hardcover give away Olivia's guilt or innocence. Reading the book, you don't learn this until at least half the way through. The Amazon review doesn't give the spoiler so that's okay to read.
The faults with this book are minimal. Many scenes rehashed the same material except from a different character's point of view, which made the novel kind of slow at times. The twists and turns continue to the very end, and while some might seem far-fetched, I didn't mind since this is a fiction novel. Stepping back and looking at the motivations of the characters and all the plot twists, I don't know if it all made sense, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Coben is a great writer and storyteller. Coben's books do all have similar traits; ie a ordinary guy that plays tennis with events from the past catching up with him. The Innocent is a complex novel full of twists that builds a story around ex-con Matt Hunter and surrounds him with mysterious characters, all of whom may not be what they seem to be.
Book Review: Coben outdoes himself
Summary: 4 Stars
The nature of sin, the possibility of redemption, and the influence of the past on the present are the three central conceits of Harlan Coben's latest thriller, The Innocent. The protagonist of the novel is one Matt Hunter, an ex-con who did time for accidentally killing a total stranger in a brawl that simply got out of hand. Although Matt's entire existence since has been colored by this one mistake, he tries not to let it determine how he lives his life.
If there's one person Matt believes he can rely on, it's his wife Olivia. That is, however, until the day he receives a video via his new cell phone showing her in a seedy hotel room with another man, apparently getting ready to have sex. That same day, he realizes persons unknown are following him. Matt doesn't put it together immediately, but these two anomalies are linked; as he slowly uncovers the bizarre truth behind these occurrences, he painfully discovers that he's not the only one with a past that haunts him.
Always worth reading, Coben outdoes himself in The Innocent, creating his most poignant and compelling novel yet. Although its violence and dark themes can lead readers to conclude it is a crime novel or thriller, it is, at its heart, a story about the nature of love, of how love can provide hope or shatter it, of how it can lead to greater things or provoke the most sordid of behaviors. Beautifully and tightly crafted, The Innocent's greatest strength lies in its vivid characters, and in Coben's ability to make us feel what they feel, no matter how dissimilar their circumstances might be from ours. This virtue makes it one of the more involving thrillers to come along in years.