Coben, Harlan

Hold Tight

#1 bestselling author Harlan Coben asks that provocative and terrifying question with his fifteenth thriller. How much do parents really want to know about their kids?

#1 bestselling author Harlan Coben asks that provocative and terrifying question with his fifteenth thriller.

#1 bestselling author Harlan Coben has become an unstoppable force in suspense fiction. His most recent novel, The Woods, spent more time on the New York Times bestseller list than his previous books and sales reached his highest levels to date. His latest page-turner, which is about just how far parents will go to protect their kids, is destined for the top of every bestseller list.

Tia and Mike Baye never imagined they’d become the type of overprotective parents who spy on their kids. But their sixteen-year-old son Adam has been unusually distant lately, and after the suicide of his classmate Spencer Hill—the latest in a string of issues at school—they can’t help but worry. They install a sophisticated spy program on Adam’s computer, and within days are jolted by a message from an unknown correspondent addressed to their son: “Just stay quiet and all safe.”

Meanwhile, browsing through an online memorial for Spencer put together by his classmates, Betsy Hill is struck by a photo that appears to have been taken on the night of her sonÂ’s death . . . and he wasnÂ’t alone. She thinks it is Adam Baye standing just outside the cameraÂ’s range; but when Adam goes missing, it soon becomes clear that something deep and sinister has infected their community. For Tia and Mike Baye, the question they must answer is this: When it comes to your kids, is it possible to know too much?

Tell No One

David Beck has rebuilt his life since his wife's murder eight years ago, finishing medical school and establishing himself as a pediatrician, but he's never forgotten the woman he fell in love with in second grade. And when a mysterious e-mail arrives on the anniversary of their first kiss, with a message and an image that leads him to wonder whether Elizabeth might still be alive, Beck will stop at nothing to find the truth that's eluded him for so many years. A powerful billionaire is equally determined to make sure his role in her disappearance never comes to light, even if it means destroying an innocent man.

In David Beck, Harlan Coben, the author of the popular series starring sports agent Myron Bolitar (Darkest Fear et al.) has created a protagonist who shares many of Bolitar's best qualities--he's a decent, generous, gentle guy whose loyalty to those he loves is unquestionable. So when he discovers that people he was close to may be responsible not only for Elizabeth's murder but also the "accidental" death of his father, Beck's sense of betrayal is as understandable to the reader as his uncharacteristically violent reaction. Coben is a skillful storyteller with a gift for creating likable characters caught up in circumstances that illuminate their complex emotional lives and deep humanity. This should be the thriller that breaks this talented writer out of the mystery genre and earns him the recognition he deserves. --Jane Adams

For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive.

Everyone tells him it’s time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible–that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive.

Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn’t. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope.

But already Beck is being hunted down. He’s headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret–and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.

The Final Detail (Myron Bolitar)

Myron Bolitar is a fascinating character--a guy in his 30s who just moved into his own New York apartment, and who still looks forward to dinner with his parents in New Jersey. A former pro-basketball star and Harvard Law School grad, he now runs his own sports agency, and also dabbles in the private investigation business. He is helped (and sometimes hindered) by his rich, blond, preppy friend Windsor Horne Lockwood III. Win has some awesome lethal powers hidden under his Brooks Brothers suits!

In The Final Detail Win and Myron are looking into the murder of a client--a troubled New York Yankees baseball player called Clu Haid. Clu was apparently shot to death by Esperanza Diaz, who just happens to be Myron's best friend and partner in the sport's agency. Esperanza is hiding something, but Myron isn't sure if it has to do with her job, or with her private life. His search for the truth takes him back to a shabby incident from his own past, and to times he would rather forget. Author Harlan Coben casually drops in dozens of poignant moments of humanity that keep us--and Myron--firmly grounded in reality.

Other books in this excellent series include Backspin, Deal Breaker, Drop Shot, and One False Move. --Dick Adler

His heart is broken. His partner is in jail. And someone is trying to kill him.

Then Myron Bolitar gets some really bad news....

For sports agent Myron Bolitar, it seemed like the perfect vacation. A tropical beach. A warm breeze. A little uncomplicated passion with a woman he barely knows. Myron is almost in heaven when his friend Win shows up with a message that blasts him back to reality: Esperanza is in trouble. It's time to come home.

Now Myron is back in New York, determined to help Esperanza, his best friend and partner, who's been accused of killing one of their clients. But Esperanza isn't talking. Neither is her lawyer. And to prove his friend's innocence, Myron must trace the rise and fall of the victim, a pitcher who had been making a comeback with the Yankees. Suddenly the investigation is leading Myron to places he'd rather not go: into a family's agony, through the city's sexual underground, and to a moment buried on the dark side of a brilliant sports career.... Twelve years ago a young agent named Bolitar tried to help an up-and-coming athlete. It was a fatal mistake—and now Myron will have to pay the price....

Gone for Good

"The ugliest truth, in the end, was still better than the prettiest of lies." So says Will Klein, whose search for his missing and allegedly murderous brother, Ken, leaves him doubting the actions of everybody he's ever loved.

Eleven years ago, Ken fled his family's suburban New Jersey neighborhood after Will's ex-girlfriend, Julie Miller, was raped and strangled. The Kleins eventually convinced themselves that Ken perished on the lam. But as Will discovers, the facts are not so simple. On her deathbed, his mother tells him that Ken is still alive. Then Will's girlfriend and "soul mate" disappears too, only to have her fingerprints turn up at a New Mexico homicide scene. How are these tragedies connected? And what's their relationship to the recent appearance of a contract killer known as the Ghost? With help from an abused ex-hooker, a former white supremacist turned yoga guru, and Julie's younger sister, Will finds himself in a tightly twisted plot that turns on double identities and misplaced trust and that forces him to dig for the courage he was always sure he lacked.

Although the premise sounds much like that of Harlan Coben's last book, the acclaimed Tell No One, and the books' ingenuous protagonists are nearly interchangeable, Gone for Good quickly establishes its separate but equally suspenseful identity. This is a tale of manifold deceptions guaranteed to show its readers up as suckers, and to make them love every moment of the experience. --J. Kingston Pierce

As a boy, Will Klein had a hero: his older brother, Ken. Then, on a warm suburban night in the Kleins’ affluent New Jersey neighborhood, a young woman—a girl Will had once loved—was found brutally murdered in her family’s basement. The prime suspect: Ken Klein. With the evidence against him overwhelming, Ken simply vanished. And when his shattered family never heard from Ken again, they were sure he was gone for good.

Now eleven years have passed. Will has found proof that Ken is alive. And this is just the first in a series of stunning revelations as Will is forced to confront startling truths about his brother, and even himself. As a violent mystery unwinds around him, Will knows he must press his search all the way to the end. Because the most powerful surprises are yet to come.

Darkest Fear (Myron Bolitar)

Myron Bolitar's father's recent heart attack brings Myron smack into a midlife encounter with issues of adulthood and mortality. And if that's not enough to turn his life upside down, the reappearance of his first serious girlfriend is. The basketball star turned sports agent, who does a little detecting when business is slow, is saddened by the news that Emily Downing's 13-year-old son is dying and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant; even if she did leave him for the man who destroyed his basketball career, he wouldn't wish tsuris like that on anyone. And he's not at all interested in getting involved with Emily again, not even to track down the one mysterious donor who may be able to save the boy. But when Myron learns that Jeremy Downing is his own son, conceived the night before Emily and Greg Downing married, he embarks on a search for someone who disappeared a lifetime ago. And what he finds leads him to a powerful family determined to keep an old secret, a disgraced reporter who may have plagiarized a novel to create a serial killer, a very interested FBI agent, and a missing child.

This is the seventh outing in a series that's been gaining in popularity since Bolitar's first appearance, in Harlan Coben's Deal Breaker. Myron's a bit of a baby, but he's not afraid to get rough when the situation calls for it, he's eminently likable, and his heart's in the right place. The fireworks are supplied by his friend and partner, Win, who really deserves a series of his own, and Esperanza, the lesbian wrestler-lawyer who has finally talked Myron into making her a partner in the business. Like Coben's other Bolitar novels, she's worth every penny. --Jane Adams

Edgar Award-winner Harlan Coben brings us his most astonishing—and deeply personal—novel yet. And it all begins when Myron Bolitar's ex tells him he's a father ... of a dying thirteen-year-old boy.

Myron never saw it coming. A surprise visit from an ex-girlfriend is unsettling enough. But Emily Downing's news brings him to his knees. Her son Jeremy is dying and needs a bone-marrow transplant—from a donor who has vanished without a trace. Then comes the real shocker: The boy is Myron's son, conceived the night before her wedding to another man.

Staggered by the news, Myron plunges into a search for the missing donor. But finding him means cracking open a dark mystery that involves a broken family, a brutal kidnapping spree, and the FBI. Somewhere in the sordid mess is the donor who disappeared. And as doubts emerge about Jeremy's true paternity, a child vanishes, igniting a chain reaction of heartbreaking truth and chilling revelation.

The Woods

Twenty years ago at summer camp, Paul Copeland's sister died in the woods, the alleged victim of a serial killer. Her body was never found. Now, Paul is the prosecutor for Essex County, New Jersey, immersed in one of the biggest cases of his career-a case that will change everything he believes about the past...and the truth.

One False Move (Myron Bolitar)

As readers who have enjoyed his appearances in original paperbacks already know, Harlan Coben's former professional basketball star Myron Bolitar is not your everyday testosterone-enriched jock. Myron is a mild-mannered guy who drinks chocolate soda and until very recently lived at home with his parents in suburban New Jersey. In his hardcover debut, we find Myron sharing a New York apartment with his longtime lady friend, writer Jessica Culver, and still running MB SportsReps, where he ostensibly manages the careers of other athletes, but really spends most of his time playing private eye. The arrival in Myron's life of rising pro basketball star Brenda Slaughter seriously tests his commitment to Jessica, who is in Hollywood working on a movie. It seems that Brenda's father Horace--Myron's old coach--has disappeared, and Brenda is receiving death threats that might involve a gangster family's plans for a new female professional basketball league. Or the threats might have something to do with Brenda's mother's connection to a wealthy New Jersey political family. Myron and his banker friend Win, a preppy with a penchant for violence, are more than enough to double-team the bad guys. Previous Myron Bolitar games in paperback include Backspin, Deal Breaker, Drop Shot, and Fade Away.

She's smart, beautiful, and she doesn't need a man to look after her. But sports agent Myron Bolitar has come into her life—big time. Now Myron's next move may be his last—

Brenda Slaughter is no damsel in distress. Myron Bolitar is no bodyguard. But Myron has agreed to protect the bright, strong, beautiful basketball star. And he's about to find out if he's man enough to unravel the tragic riddle of her life.

Twenty years before, Brenda's mother deserted her. And just as Brenda is making it to the top of the women's pro basketball world, her father disappears too. A big-time New York sports agent with a foundering love life, Myron has a professional interest in Brenda. Then a personal one. But between them isn't just the difference in their backgrounds or the color of their skin. Between them is a chasm of corruption and lies, a vicious young mafioso on the make, and one secret that some people are dying to keep—and others are killing to protect....

Back Spin (Myron Bolitar)

Kidnappers have snatched the teenage son of super-star golfer Linda Coldren and her husband, Jack, an aging pro, at the height of the U.S. Open. To help get the boy back, sports agent Myron Bolitar goes charging after clues and suspects from the Main Line mansions to a downtown cheaters' motel--and back in time to a U.S. Open twenty-three years ago, when Jack Coldren should have won, but didn't. Suddenly Myron finds him self surrounded by blue bloods, criminals, and liars. And as one family's darkest secrets explode into murder, Myron finds out just how rough this game can get.

In novels that crackle with wit and suspense, Edgar Award winner Harlan Coben has created one of the most fascinating and complex heroes in suspense fiction--Myron Bolitar--a hotheaded, tenderhearted sports agent who grows more and more engaging and unpredictable with each page-turning appearance.

Fade Away (Myron Bolitar)

The home was top-notch New Jersey suburban. The living room was Martha Stewart. The basement was Legos—and blood. For sports agent Myron Bolitar, the disappearance of a man he'd once competed against was bringing back memories—of the sport he and Greg Downing had both played and the woman they both loved. Now, among the stars, the wanna-bes, the gamblers and groupies, Myron is unraveling the strange, violent life of a sports hero gone wrong, and coming face-to-face with a past he can't relive, and a present he may not survive.

In novels that crackle with wit and suspense, Edgar Award winner Harlan Coben has created one of the most fascinating and complex heroes in suspense fiction—Myron Bolitar—a hotheaded, tenderhearted sports agent who grows more and more engaging and unpredictable with each page-turning appearance.

Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar)

Sports agent Myron Bolitar is poised on the edge of the big time. So is Christian Steele, a rookie quarterback and Myron's prized client. But when Christian gets a phone call from a former girlfriend, a woman who everyone, including the police, believes is dead, the deal starts to go sour. Trying to unravel the truth about a family's tragedy, a woman's secret, and a man's lies, Myron is up against the dark side of his business—where image and talent make you rich, but the truth can get you killed.

In novels that crackle with wit and suspense, Edgar Award winner Harlan Coben has created one of the most fascinating and complex heroes in suspense fiction—Myron Bolitar—a hotheaded, tenderhearted sports agent who grows more and more engaging and unpredictable with each page-turning appearance.