One False Move
Harlan Coben
Hodder and Stoughton. First published 1998.
I was looking for a good crime novel in the noir tradition of Raymond Chandler when I got this book (as a present from Usha, Krishna and Amudhan). Harlen Coben is no Chandler - not even close. His hero, Myron Boltair, is no Philip Marlowe. Boltair is not a detective, he's a sports agent, but he somehow gets involved in crime detection. He spends so much time and money on it, that one wonders how he gets to keep his sports agent business going. His detection consists mostly of making phone calls to his contacts who get him information. He's got a tough, smart and rich friend called Win, whose very name scares the shit out of even hard mobsters. To summarize, he's got a friend who takes care of the physical stuff, another friend/associate who takes care of his business, friends in the police, phone companies and so on, who take care of the actual information gathering. So what is his role? To be cool all the time, make the wise cracks and keep going from one place to another, arriving too late to do any real good, like stopping a murder or suicide. Coben makes some attempt at social comment - race relations, gender equality, sexual freedom. But these are tepid at best, and mostly contradictory. All-in-all, a disappointment.
Oh well, back to re-reading Chandler. Or maybe I can hunt down some of the Ross Macdonalds I have not read.
I was looking for a good crime novel in the noir tradition of Raymond Chandler when I got this book (as a present from Usha, Krishna and Amudhan). Harlen Coben is no Chandler - not even close. His hero, Myron Boltair, is no Philip Marlowe. Boltair is not a detective, he's a sports agent, but he somehow gets involved in crime detection. He spends so much time and money on it, that one wonders how he gets to keep his sports agent business going. His detection consists mostly of making phone calls to his contacts who get him information. He's got a tough, smart and rich friend called Win, whose very name scares the shit out of even hard mobsters. To summarize, he's got a friend who takes care of the physical stuff, another friend/associate who takes care of his business, friends in the police, phone companies and so on, who take care of the actual information gathering. So what is his role? To be cool all the time, make the wise cracks and keep going from one place to another, arriving too late to do any real good, like stopping a murder or suicide. Coben makes some attempt at social comment - race relations, gender equality, sexual freedom. But these are tepid at best, and mostly contradictory. All-in-all, a disappointment.
Oh well, back to re-reading Chandler. Or maybe I can hunt down some of the Ross Macdonalds I have not read.
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