Is it possible for a man who is dead to be a suspect in a murder case?
If there is DNA found at a crime scene of the aforementioned person, is it a slam-dunk fact that the supposedly deceased is in fact a clever and manipulative murderer?
Or does this case readily comprise one of the biggest and methodical set-ups of all time?
Such eerie suppositions and widely reverberating propositions are extrapolated in powerhouse American crime writer, Harlan Coben’s, latest stellar novel, Think Twice.
Myron Bolitar is a high-flying and hugely successful sports agent (he is also a sharp and quick-thinking attorney who has been admitted to the bar) whose office in the business hub of New York is disarmingly swanky and reeking of money.
One day that is otherwise steeped in ‘normality’ is about to irrevocably change the seemingly linear trajectory of Myron’s carefully constructed life. It is on this previously unassuming day that two FBI agents (Special Agent Monica Hawes and ‘Young Beluga’, because Myron doesn’t catch his name and Myron inwardly ascertains that he is like a beluga whale) come to Myron’s office with demonstrably shocking questions and news.
The agents get straight to the point by asking where ‘Greg Downing’ is? This firecracker of a question is a seismic one for Myron. For Greg Downing (an old basketball adversary of Myron’s when they both played professionally and the man who ended up marrying Myron’s great love in college, Emily) has been dead for three years. Myron even gave a heart-felt eulogy at Greg’s funeral.
Greg’s financial advisor, Win (whose exorbitant wealth enable him to own the building that Myron’s penthouse office resides in) is a long-time buddy of Myron’s and is present at the up-ending meeting. Win had also been in attendance at Greg’s funeral.
As a bewildered and shaken Myron explains to the stern-faced agents, “I was his (Greg’s) agent and manager”.
It transpires that Greg’s DNA has been found at the scene of the recently committed Callister murders. Cecilia Callister was a fifty-two year old former supermodel back in the day. Her and her “thirty-year-old son, Clay, were found murdered in the mansion where they resided with Cecelia’s fourth husband, Lou Himble. Himble had recently been indicted on fraud charges related to his cryptocurrency startup”.
Myron had believed the case to be already solved, a motive transparent. Myron believes and stoically informs the agents that “The husband was having an affair, she found out, was going to turn state’s evidence on him, he had to silence her, the son walked in on them. Something like that”.
Is Greg alive after all this time?
Did he in fact commit the Callister murders or is he the victim of a cruel and deliberate set-up?
Myron and Win find themselves in search of characters from Greg’s past. An assortment of eclectic people that in some cases leave much to be desired in terms of integrity.
Donna Kravat (a middle-aged woman who is the forever-grieving mother of the murdered Jordan Kravat) is located by Myron as she suns herself lazily by a pool in Las Vegas. Myron is very eager to locate a Bo Storm, a man who knew Jordan Kravat. Bo is/was a man who has disappeared, and a man who may or may not have known Greg Downing.
Were Greg and Bo lovers? What is Bo’s connection to a hardy woman named Grace Konners?
What caused Grace to go “off the so-called grid”?
What is Grace’s link to Greg?
Has Bo run away to escape the fearsome member of the mob known as “Joey the Toe”?
More murders are taking place, and it seems people are taking the rap for them who are (seemingly) innocent.
Who murdered the steely-headed Ronald Prine (“a major Philadelphia real estate mogul”)?
Was it the down-trodden Jackie Newton, a woman whose father and herself have not been paid by Prine for a large, time-consuming job)? Jackie is arrested for the murder.
Who is Myron’s biological son, Jeremy? A son who was raised by Greg Downing and Emily (his biological mother). What is the secret nature of Jeremy’s work? Is Jeremy a solo or co-conspirator?
Do Special Agent Hawes and her team ever locate Greg Downing?
Has Greg been inordinately clever in disappearing himself or is he really dead?
Has Greg finally slipped up?
Is Greg a killer or an unwitting victim of someone else?
Are the string of murders that are taking place throughout America the work of a serial killer?
Have naive people just been very unlucky to have the murders successively pinned on them?
Who is Myron’s journalist wife, Terese? How does she slot into the story?
Is Bo ever found?
Harlan has written a cracker of a story that has it all. Deaths that may or may not be fake. FBI agents on the case and folk who have taken a large step back from the frenetic pace of life, or have they?
Think Twice exudes intelligence, insight and encompasses clever observations of the human psyche – the good and the bad.
Themes of grief, betrayal, family relationships and romantic love are explored throughout this sterling novel. I found myself turning the pages faster and faster the further I progressed in this book.
Some of Harlan’s previous books have been made into Netflix series. This one would certainly make a superb series on streaming.
For any budding authors out there, Harlan tells us that for him as a writer, “My routine is not to have a routine……I remember I once found a great spot writing beside the deli counter of my local grocery store in New Jersey, and I’d come home smelling like olive loaf, but I got a lot of writing done. In 2012, I spent three weeks writing in the back of Ubers on a pen and paper because it worked for me”.
I loved Think Twice. Please put me down to read whatever Harlan writes next!
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