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Guilt, heartbreak and loss are three things the narrator of NO SECOND CHANCE is about to experience as the book begins. Dr. Marc Seidman has been unconscious for twelve days after being shot in his own home by an unknown assailant. When he awakens from his hospital bed, he learns that his wife is dead and that their six-month-old daughter, Tara was taken. Could it get any worse? It will; especially when author Harlan Coben takes control of the reins of the situation finding a way to make the hero’s life difficult. He will take us into a rollercoaster ride where nothing is what it seems and a lie would have been preferable to the ugly truths that are about to be revealed. Sound familiar? The same formulas used in the last two novels are once again used in this latest work. In TELL NO ONE, a wife presumed to be dead returns; GONE FOR GOOD, the protagonist’s brother vanishes. In NO SECOND CHANCE, a baby disappears. The police believe that Marc orchestrated his wife’s death and disappearance of his child. On the flip side, a group of bad people are seeking a ransom in exchange for the baby. Their only stipulation is that if the police are contacted, they will disappear. The first part of the book reads like a great suspenseful thriller wondering what happens next. The second part takes place eighteen months later. The best way to describe it is by toying with the title of a C + C Music Factory song and calling it, ‘Things That Make You Go – HUUUH?’ Every one of the major characters has extreme emotional baggage making one wonder, how can they even manage to stand up? There is a disgraced, former FBI agent who still hasn’t gotten over her break-up of her college sweetheart, Marc. She will help him find his daughter, but does not what happens after that is done. Also, there is the hitman team of Lydia, a former-child-star-turned-homicidal-maniac, and her lover Heshy, a violent brute added to the mix of this caper. There are some others, but it is not necessary to include them here. Secondary characters are thoroughly wasted in the book, both figuratively and literally. Once they serve their purpose in the book, they are executed. There are some connections in the story that are not convincing leaving the reader questioning several things. Some examples are ‘How did they know that?’, ‘How did Lydia and Heshy ever met their employer?’, ‘Why didn’t so-and-so speak up when the police were targeting Marc?’ and ‘What the heck is she doing there?’ NO SECOND CHANCE is an infuriating novel that borrows from its predecessors and leaves a window of opportunity for the return of some of the characters. It is a confusing puzzle that is way overdone. If the next book involves the vanishing of a beloved family pet and its distraught owner involved in some form of top-secret experiment, then it would probably complete the set. Let’s hope that is not what happens next. It is time to move on.
Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, June 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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