Customer Reviews

The Innocent

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Harlan Coben is a total master of his craft. In "The Innocent" Coben weaves a very complex plot, populates with believable characters and, at the end, leaves you disappointed that the book has drawn to a close. You want more. More of Matt Hunter, who accidentally killed someone in a college brawl. More of Loren Muse, the intelligent, conflicted investigator who thinks Hunter is involved with current murders. More of Olivia Hunter, Matt's pregnant wife who wants nothing more than an ordinary life. And more of all the characters Coben creates.

He is that good.

The story is not simple. Coben's plotting reminds me of a gnarly tree: it starts at the bottom with a trunk and than branches off with some of the branches intertwining with others. Stories and characters overlap, but not to point of confusion.

Coben is a master. In "The Innocent," he has written a superb mystery thriller. Ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances and doing what they must to survive --- if the bad folks don't kill them first.

Superb.

Jerry

Those familiar with Harlan Coben's series featuring sports agent sometimes detective Myron Bolitar will delight in this gifted author's latest book, The Innocent. Joining other stand alone books of Mr. oben's like Tell No One and Gone for Good, this book takes its rightful place along with the above mentioned as being a hair raising roller coaster of a read. And one which I imagine most readers will love as I did when Mr. Coben's newest book around the asks the age old question, do we really and truly know the person we're married to. To day this is a really good suspsense book and will have yoru emotions going up and down as the suspsense mounts is an understatemnt.

Matt Hunter is 20 years old when during a vacation from a college vacation, he is involved in a brawl and accidentally kills a college student. Although he ha dlittle do with instigating the fight and merely was trying to help a friend, Matt is found at the scene whiel others scurried away and stands trial for the death of another college student.
While this most likely was an accident and he may be innocent he is found guilty by a jury and is sentenced to spend several years in prison. Needless to say, as a young suburban man, Matt is less than prepared for prison life but manages to stay alive. When he leaves prison four years later he is taken under the wing of his older brother,a laywer with a prestigious NJ firm which eventually hire Matt as a paralegal. But life for Matt as a convicted felon will never be the same.

Now it is nine years later, Matt's brother is dead from a brain
aneurysm and his father is also gone. Matt's mother and
sister live far away but he still helps out his sister in law
and his two nephews. Matt also continues to work for the same law firm as before but he is now mrried to a wonderful woman, Olivia and they are expecting their first child.He is also about to close on a home in his old neighborhhod and Matt cn't help but think that life is good. But when his wife convinces him to buy two cell phones which can send pictures, this sets in motion a series of events which have Matt wondering who Olivia really is and why is his life spiraling downwards. on one otherwise ordinary day Matt's phone rings and
the sights he sees will once again change life as he knew it.
And we as readers now embark alogn with Matt on a whirwind and well thought out plot stretching from New Jerey to Nevada
with a cast of characters we come to know and enjoy.

This was a real good read, much better than Coben's last two books, No Second Chance and Just One Look, in my opinion. The characters are fully developed and we are privy to not only what is happening now but what happened to them in the past as well. Readers are able to feel all of the emotions as this story takes off and doesn't let go. One slight change from Mr. Coben's other stand alone books and main characters is that, Matt Hunter isn't quite as sarcastic as other characters found in this author's other books, ie Myron Bolitar This fact makes Matt a much more believable and vulnearble character. And as hardened as Matt may seem from priosn life,underneath we know that he can't believe the world he has made with Olivia is unraveling before his eyes.

Harlan Coben's books at best are rather convoluted which
has been one criticism which I have often heard about his books. I even found myself taking a few notes while reading his books to try and keep one step ahead of these well crafted novels. Overall, though, I found this book a bit easier to keep up with and if I didn't get all of the goings on at the end, Matt Hunter himself says there are some things he won't ever understand either. And this I can live with since I really enjoyed this book. If I had one small criticsm it would be that the end was a bit too coincidental as if the author decided to tie up the book with an ending which readers were hoping would happen.

While I have read all of Mr. Coben's stand alone books I haven't read any of his Myron Bolita series books. I hope to read them this summer. And I also am anxiously waiting for Mr. Coben's next stand alone. he can't write them fast enough for me and I highly recommend his books.

I love Coben, I really do: Tell No One proved formative in my decision to write genre fiction. I've proceeded to gobble up every stand-alone since Tell, but by the time I finished No Second Chance, his third stand-alone, I noticed Coben had employed THE VERY SAME TWIST IN EACH BOOK. Tell No One, Gone For Good, No Second Chance, Just One Look--the big mystery behind each pivoted on the same identical fulcrum. I wondered: "Will he ever try something new?"

Enter The Innocent. I prayed and begged the gods of genre fiction that Coben had learned to flex his creative muscles. I bequeathed them burnt offerings as an intercession on Coben's behalf, that they would let the scales fall from his eyes and grow him to be more than a one-trick pony. Please, I wailed, please let The Innocent be different! No more of the same!

But the gods must hate me.

The Innocent has at its core the same schtick peddled in previous Coben stories which, for the sake of not spoiling your own reading, will not be mentioned in this review. The story had the twists and turns Coben's fans have come to expect, but in the end it seems he's grown quite content to re-gift the same gimmick to us time and again. Not only that, but The Innocent was his second most sloppily-written work behind Just One Look. His description resorts yet again to little more than telling as opposed to showing. The characters are better drawn here than in Look, the ever-present info-dump still frustrates--albeit not as madly as in Look--and the dialogue continues to be embellished and redundant. Furthermore, instances exist when the story FEELS like it's moving forward, but ends up staying in one place till the next chapter or the one after that. Comparatively speaking, Innocent was a welcome semi-return to form after Just One Look (a putrid piece of fiction). It doesn't stand up to Tell, Gone, or even Chance, or even most of the Bolitar series, but thank the fiction gods that at least we don't have to put up with Just One Look II: The Sideways Glance.

The message seems to be, "I'm Harlan Coben, I can take you for a ride, so I can grow lax in the areas not concerned with plot." He's since returned to his Bolitar series, and for that we can only hope his schtick has at last come to an end. Read this after Tell, Gone, and Chance (in that order), and skip Look. Be prepared, however, that the more you read his stand-alones the more you'll get the same ol' again and again.

The first 25 or 30 chapters, Coben had me. Not that his writing is really notable or even that great, but he is a master of drawing you in, then as each chapter ends, he reveals another tiny part of the mystery to propel you in to the next chapter.

That's the good news. The bad news is that this novel basically fizzles out about half way through. Improbable character motivations, unrealistic law enforcement situations, and the ultimate no-no, a convoluted plot that crashes and burns in the end.

I really wanted to like this book but the unbelievable writing ultimately sinks it.

You are Harlan Coben and you are a writer. You are tired of your series character and you have a contract to deliver a book. You decide to write a stand alone book about a guy who can't become a lawyer because he killed some guy at a fraternity party. So your character becomes a paralegal whose practice is only eclipsed by Danny Devito playing Deck Shifflet, the "paralawyer" in The Rainmaker.

You aren't a lawyer so you don't know how utterly improbable this is. Your character marries a wonderful girl, who has a past worse than your protagonist. You offer lots of plot twists, but with fifty pages to go and the bad guys dead, you don't use them up. So you spend fifty pages showing off how clever you are.

You are so clever that you try to write the book in second person, present tense. Your editor stops you, but you manage to open and close it in the second person. In the middle you write third person past tense from differing points of view. You consider yourself daring. Others are just annoyed at your waste of talent and waste of their time. They know you can do much better.

This book started out to be interesting, and then halfway through - became a little muddy, and towards the end - completely confusing. You will need to create a flow chart to keep up with the jagged plot.
There are so many characters who are introduced without going into depth, that I kept wondering who each one was, and what was his/her part in the story. I realize it is only a novel, but it went from being somewhat believable to sounding more like a story that a first-grader would spin - it just became more ridiculous and silly.
I realize that most of Mr. Coben's fans disagree with my rating, but I like a book - even a novel - to have some semblance of reality.

I am a bit of a snob when it comes to choosing what books I will read. I don't pay much attention to what is on the "Best Seller" lists. I am usually not interested in reading what everyone is reading on the beach this summer!

Generally, I choose what to read by following two main criteria. First, I will read a book by an author whose work I have already read, enjoyed and who I respect. Second, I will read a book recommended to me by someone whose tastes in literature I respect. As a result, I don't often read what is currently popular. So, I was a little taken aback last week when on several occasions - while riding on the "T" in Boston and while dining in restaurants - people noticed the book I was reading and stopped to say: "He is one of my favorite authors; that is a great book." The book I was reading was "The Innocent," and the author is Harlan Coben, "modern master of the hook-and-twist," according to author Dan Brown.

I do not want to give away any of the delicious plot twists of this page-turner, so I will limit my comments to a few hors-d'oeuvres. Here is the scenario:

A nun turns up dead in a convent in Newark, New Jersey, and suspicions are aroused when it turns out that she had breast implants! Just who was Sister Mary Rose? A man who has served time in prison for involuntary manslaughter finds himself accused of a crime he did not commit. His wife appears to be having an affair and her "lover" seems to be flaunting it in front of the husband. An orphaned girl tries to find her birth mother, a Las Vegas stripper who was murdered years ago - or was she? Let the games begin!

From these "base" and basic ingredients, Coben concocts a zesty ragout that guarantees surprises in every bite.

Ultimately, believe it or not, this suspense novel evolves into a very moving story about unconditional love, redemption and second chances.

I have read the book twice. What does that tell you?

Enjoy!

Al

I have to agree with reader/reviewer,"Confused", that you need a flow chart to keep track of the characters and their doings in this book. I liked the first 2/3 of the book, but then the plot started branching all over the place. The motives of the characters weren't clear to me, and there were so many poorly developed characters that I couldn't keep their stories straight. Even though I took extra care to read slowly and comprehend, when I was done with the book, I couldn't tell you who did what--nor did I really care anymore. I have read thousands of books of this genre through the years, but this one just got ridiculous. I've read Coben's other books with enjoyment. I realize that this is not the popular opinion of this book, but it's mine.

A couple of years back, I read Harlan Coben's "Tell No One" in one sitting while on the beach for a day in Gloucester, MA. I had never been so riveted by a book, and had never even heard of this author before. I actively seek out his books now, and his latest, "The Innocent", does not disappoint. In his protagonist, Matt Hunter, Coben creates a main character who readers will immediately root for. The story continuously offers new twists and turns, that are impossible to figure out ahead of time. This is a fantastic summer read, and I truly, highly recommend it!

I had heard of Harlan Coben of course, but had never read one of his books until I got one as a present last night. And now I havent been to sleep, as I couldnt stop reading it. The plot (which is well summarized above so I wont do it here) races along,
with more twists and turns than Space Mountain and yet I was never lost, only the edge of my chair and then my bed. And unlike so many thriller writers, Coben's characters seem like real people-they could be your neighbors, yet they are faced with terrible crises revolving around simple questions of love and family. And Coben's writing is both terrific and funny in a way only a few other others, like Spillane and MacDonald, have achieved. Read The Innocent for the great plot, the fascinating character portrayls, the incredible suspense or the humor, but dont miss it. Im going to get another Harlan Coben for this weekend when I dont have to get up early.