Geschreven bij Gone For Good
What new to say after so many positive reviews? Is this thriller an ode to novelist and activist Andrew Vachss (AV) ’s lifelong fight against pedophiles and sexual exploitation of children? AV’s security-conscious hero Burke led a weird posse of helpers and AV’s prose dripped with hatred from every page. Harlan Coben(HC)’s hero Will Klein is in the same business, but less focused on perverts and perpetrators. Instead, he highlights the backgrounds of the runaways arriving in droves in NYC and helps them from sliding into a drugs-dependent street life full of cheap casual sex and early death. Alone? Will Klein is also part of a gang of committed helpers, headed by the tattooed owner/founder of a small yoga empire, incidentally also his boss and best friend.
Enough about Vachss because HC’s thriller goes far beyond child abuse. It is about old murders, others taking place in the present and likely to happen in future. Intricate, intelligent plot full of cliff hangers in which Will Klein, a self-declared coward, is pressed by circumstances to rise above himself. And readers are always ahead of him in his search for answers to many questions and mysteries. No one except storyteller Will Klein turns out to be the type of person initially portrayed. HC is not a quick finisher (or economic writer), rather a meticulous plotter expertly suturing any remaining loose ends
HC’s writing is interactive, sometimes funny, ironical or laconic, sometimes thoughtful and emphatic, never losing pace or focus. My favorite chapter of this action-packed book concerns a key witness about two murdered former students of a girls college. She opens her door to investigator Will, dressed in full mourning, her small house almost bursting with Lady Di memorabilia… A chapter of pure slapstick (at least for me) at a time just past the halfway mark when the book needed it. Brilliant cameo.