Monday, November 07, 2011
Play Dead by Harlan Coben .
Laura and David are on honeymoon. Laura returns to their hotel to find this note from David...
LAURA,
BE BACK SOON. WENT FOR A SWIM IN THE OCEAN. I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT.
DAVID
...Only David does not come back.
The introduction to this book states...
Okay, if this is the first book of mine you're going to try. stop now. Return it. Grab another. It's okay. I'll wait. If you're still here, please know that I haven't read Play Dead in at least twenty years. I didn't want to rewrite it and pass it off as a new book. I hate when authors do that. So this is, for better or worse, the exact book I wrote when I was in my early twenties, just a naive lad working in the travel industry and wondering if I should follow my father and brother and go to (shudder) law school
...I have read The Woods and Hold Tight - this, his first novel is just as good. I think that Harlan was being rather hard on himself in the introduction as Play Dead is a great novel and it is a surprise that it was his first novel. Reading this book, it is easy to see why Harlan Coben became a successful author.
This book has 518 pages and was written in 1990 but first published in paperback in Great Britain in 2010. Play Dead is a clever conspiracy that forces the reader to guess what is going on. The title of Play Dead gives you both a clue and a hope. The beauty is the depth of this plot and how you can doubt every character. The story makes it easy to think bad of people. All the characters are well developed. Details are steadily fed into the story as the conspiracy unfolds. The plot is excellent and very involved. This novel ticks all the boxes. It is very entertaining and does the job. The ending is fine and brings good closure for all the characters. I can find nothing wrong with this novel and will vote it the maximum of 5 stars of Good Reads .
Laura and David are on honeymoon. Laura returns to their hotel to find this note from David...
LAURA,
BE BACK SOON. WENT FOR A SWIM IN THE OCEAN. I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT.
DAVID
...Only David does not come back.
The introduction to this book states...
Okay, if this is the first book of mine you're going to try. stop now. Return it. Grab another. It's okay. I'll wait. If you're still here, please know that I haven't read Play Dead in at least twenty years. I didn't want to rewrite it and pass it off as a new book. I hate when authors do that. So this is, for better or worse, the exact book I wrote when I was in my early twenties, just a naive lad working in the travel industry and wondering if I should follow my father and brother and go to (shudder) law school
...I have read The Woods and Hold Tight - this, his first novel is just as good. I think that Harlan was being rather hard on himself in the introduction as Play Dead is a great novel and it is a surprise that it was his first novel. Reading this book, it is easy to see why Harlan Coben became a successful author.
This book has 518 pages and was written in 1990 but first published in paperback in Great Britain in 2010. Play Dead is a clever conspiracy that forces the reader to guess what is going on. The title of Play Dead gives you both a clue and a hope. The beauty is the depth of this plot and how you can doubt every character. The story makes it easy to think bad of people. All the characters are well developed. Details are steadily fed into the story as the conspiracy unfolds. The plot is excellent and very involved. This novel ticks all the boxes. It is very entertaining and does the job. The ending is fine and brings good closure for all the characters. I can find nothing wrong with this novel and will vote it the maximum of 5 stars of Good Reads .
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