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Harlan Coben established his reputation as a mystery writer with his now series character Myron Bolitar, sports agent extraordinaire. Occasionally, as in TELL NO ONE, he dashes off a standalone novel but it is reasonable to say that his immense popularity rests on the shoulders of Myron Bolitar. THE FINAL DETAIL sees the resurrection of an earlier outing of the redoubtable lawyer/agent. Myron (whom the author admits has a largely autobiographical component of his character) has taken himself off to a setting which would have any healthy male slavering. He is on a remote Caribbean island with a luscious, intelligent, desirable and willing woman. What more could a man want? Well, an easy conscience. Myron has been the cause of the death of an innocent who trusted him. He wished to vanish as completely as he wishes his guilty thoughts would disappear. Despite not telling anyone (including his best friends Esperanza and Win) where he would be, one day, weeks into the remorseful adventure, Win Lockwood turns up to bring an end to Myron's idyll. He must return to New York because Esperanza stands accused of murdering his first client and sometime friend, Clu Haid. Big Cyndi, Myron's receptionist and Esperanza's friend, has parked herself outside the prison where Myron's partner is being kept. Myron thinks he can easily obtain bail for Esperanza but, to his baffled amazement, Esperanza refuses to see him or to let her lawyer, a famous television personality, have anything to do with him. Despite the lady's wishes, Myron and Win are determined to save the accused from the consequences of her stubbornness. True to form, Bolitar manages to suffer physical as well as mental damage as he does battle with a rival sports agent. His investigations take him, escorted by Big Cyndi, into an ambiguous bar called Take A Guess, the guess being just what sex or orientation one's pick-up might turn out to be. This could just be one of the strangest locations of Myron's many misadventures throughout his very strange career. Coben obviously has very strong moral convictions. He promotes familial love above carnal love and loyalty to family and friends above loyalty to self. Nonetheless, his protagonist, together with that protagonist's best friend, do tend to take into their own hands the punishments due to others who might escape justice as meted out by legal authorities. Psychopathic Win (based, so Coben confesses on a college roommate) has no compunction about executing people but Bolitar, although complicit in Win's activities, tends to suffer pangs of guilt. This novel is told in the author's customary humorous style into which lots of violence is incorporated. The plot is circuitous, to say the least, and at times I felt the twists were a little unconvincing and unnecessary. Nonetheless, Myron Bolitar may increase the number of his admirers when readers who had not previously read this work make up that deficit.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, December 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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