Tell Everyone, this is not original at all! (Tell No One - Harlan Coben)

Member Name: KingHerrod

Product:	Tell No One - Harlan Coben
Date:	10/03/02 (219 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to read

Disadvantages: Formulaic, Predictable

Thrillers? Yes, thrillers, a genre of novel that is well represented in the book shops, fast paced, page turning, suspense filled and usually easy to read. I am not the worlds biggest fan of the thriller, there are some good ones out there, but most of them are forgettable, read it quickly put it down and 2 months later, you can't remember the plot, the characters, the language or any of it. This offering by Harlan Coben falls into that category, it entertains, just, but it is not a book that I would ever read again, in fact I almost didn't read it all, but I did. Well, you cannot start a book and not finish it, well I cannot anyway and some books pick up.

Harlan Coben is an American author, apparently he has been big news state side for a while now with a series of books based around a character called Myron Bolitar. It is only recently that he has been published on this more sedate side of the Atlantic and according to the praise on the cover of this book, this is one author that we should not have been able to live without.

Tell No One is a tale of loss and hope, eight years prior to the time period of the novel, Dr David Beck was left for dead at a remote American lake and his wife, Elizabeth murdered. A serial killer, KillRoy, is on death row, thought to be the killer of Elizabeth and the good doctor has been trying to get on with his life ever since. David is clearly the good guy, he is a good doctor, but he spends his life providing care on the American Medicaid system a kind of American NHS, when of course he could earn big bucks by being a private doctor. There are no shades of grey in this character, David is the good guy, and he is good beyond good. Everything he does is for good. This is the first big problem that I have with this novel, all this moralising, nobody is all good and nobody is perfect.

David has clearly struggled to get over the loss of his wife, he still grieves and then all of a sudden h
e receives a number of cryptic e-mails, these e-mails contain information that only Elizabeth knew, is she alive, or is somebody playing cruel tricks? From here we embark on the discovery of a huge conspiracy involving Griffin Scope a multi-billionaire and the previous murder of his son Brandon and of course the running around of our good doctor. Is Elizabeth alive?

Tell No One is written from the first person perspective of David Beck, it is fast paced, it uses blunt prose, one word is used when two would have added more depth. This book takes fast paced writing to the extreme and as a result there is more depth in a one inch puddle on the pavement. The characters are stereotypical, more stereotypical than a poor Grisham novel, the baddies are very bad and the goodies very good. There is the crusading FBI agent, the lazy FBI agent, the good lesbian sister, just to make sure that the book is politically correct, the rich are evil, the poor can be evil, but it is not their fault because they are just trying not to be poor. What makes the book worse is that the plot does not flow, sections are added in the early part of the book, which don't fit and don't flow, they just serve to lever into place part of the plot. Characters appear from nowhere, in no way set in the context of the novel serving purely to disrupt any flow that the novel has and so the first half of the story has no cohesion and is not all that griping. It still leaves you a little curious though and that is this book's saving grace.

It is ironic that a book that is about the fact that nothing is as it seems at first glance, should be everything that it seems at first glance. It is a slick, sanctimonious, moralising American thriller. The ending is not that hard to work out, come on what do you think, happily ever after or not. Once you are half way, the basis of the rest of the plot is clear. Morals are shades of grey, not black and white, there are some half h
earted attempts to convey this, but in the end it is all black and white.

If you want an easy read, do not want to be challenged at all and want to be taken by the hand through the plot, then this is fine, I am sure it would while away a long train journey. There is nothing original in Tell No One, it is formulaic and in the end a little boring. If you like thrillers and mysteries there are better authors around, Ian Rankin's Rebus series has far more depth and Colin Dexter's Morse books are far less predictable.

If you pick this up and like it, as I am sure people will as it has that kind of harmless appeal, then there is a website all about Harlan Coben at harlancoben.com, be warned he is not shy about telling everyone how good he thinks he is. They are also making this book into a film, apparently starring Jennifer Lopez. We can all guess what type of film this book will make, formulaic and done to death are two phrases that spring to mind.

Tell No One is published by Orion and costs £5.99 in paperback. I got mine for half price from Amazon, it is heading very quickly to the charity shop. At 346 pages it is an easy read and one that passes, thankfully, quickly. It just manages to entertain, hence a generous 2 stars.

I can quite happily live without anymore of this churned literature being published. Ring any bells?

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