Hold Tight -- Harlan Coben

I'm thinking Harlan Coben has created his own sub-genre: Suburban Noir. All those nice houses. All those nice people. Doomed, every one of them. At least that's the way it's seemed in Coben's most recent novels. In this one, a couple of things trigger off the chain of events: a kid's suicide and a teacher's offhand but cruel remark about a student. No need to say much more about the plot because that's the main thing the book has going for it, and I don't want to spoil things. Sure it's a goofy plot, but that's what the willing suspension of disbelief comes in. It'll help you swallow a couple of pretty large coincidences, too.

Hester Crimstein, from the Myron Bolitar novels, has a nice part in this one, too. If I ever commit a crime, I want to call Hester right off the bat. Little Pocahontas gets a mention, too, but nothing more than that. There aren't a lot of laughs to be had.

Since the days when he was writing the Myron Bolitar books, Harlan Coben has come a long way as far as sales. He's probably one of the best-selling writers around by now, with big sales in plenty of foreign countries as well as the U.S. More power to him.