"Home" by Harlan Coben – Bring the Boys Back Home!

Harlan Coben's Take on Hope

Hope is a rather funny concept, for on one hand it can give us the will to live, to continue fighting and enduring, while on the other hand, it can deceptively lead us from the frying pan into the fire as it becomes an obsession and an inability to accept reality.

Luckily for us though, literary characters are fortunate enough not having to contend with such frustrating real-life dilemmas. For them, hope is without a question the path (and literary device) to follow and cling to, as Win Lockwood does for over a decade in Harlan Coben's Home.

I believe we're all familiar with the famous 48-hour rule when it comes to child kidnappings, and though Hollywood may have certainly skewed reality a bit, the fact remains that the first two days are of critical importance, and once they pass the chances of a positive outcome begin to diminish drastically. In the case of Win Lockwood, we're talking about the disappearance of two young boys, one of them related to him, a whole decade ago.

Clinging to any kind of hope in his case is what most people would call foolish, but being in the world of books it turns out to be just the right thing to do as he finally manages to track down one of the two children, now a teenage boy.

Because fate saw fit to stand in his way in the form of three generic thugs, Lockwood ends up losing the boy, at which point he calls to Myron Bolitar for help.

Thus begins their frantic quest to set right the wrongs of the past and bring the boys back to their grieving parents and discover what fate truly befell them on that damned night ten years ago... and if it's even still possible, bring to justice the one responsible for all that pain and suffering.

Solid Structure and a Great Hook

Unlike some authors who are perhaps slightly overconfident in their abilities, Harlan Coben doesn't try to dazzle you with a beautiful prose or breathtaking descriptions. He understands better than most where the essence of a thriller really lies: in the progression of the story.

The point in this kind of novel is to hook us in with a provoking mystery that keeps us interested in solving it, and then to move things along quickly while maintaining a certain intensity coupled with various elements of surprise.

That's precisely what Coben does, starting with the case of the two boys who disappeared years ago. The whole thing is presented as such a peculiar incident that, as a dedicated mystery reader, you basically have no choice but to keep asking yourself who did it, why, and what happened during that whole decade.

Chances are that you'll be running through your head a number of different scenarios that could explain it all, but I guarantee that even the wisest and most accomplished of mystery readers won't be able to deduce the resolution, at least not with any kind of certainty... the ending reminds us all why it is we fall in love with thrillers.

As Coben drives us through the main mystery, he also deemed it necessary to give us some elementary insights into the various participants in this tragedy.

He doesn't spend too much time on anyone, but just enough to convey a general sense of who they are and their state of mind. Even Win and Myron who get more attention than the others (obviously exploiting their protagonist privilege) develop only a little bit from the beginning to the end.

Despite the lack of focus on character progression, I will admit that most of them are believable and serve their functions in the plot with perfection, especially when it comes to the parents; you can definitely tell there is something more to them right away, but can never quite put your finger on what (until the end, of course).

One thing I truly appreciated about Coben's writing is that he never has to resort to leaps of logic, improbable coincidences, or even a suspension of disbelief.

The whole plot is assembled in a very structured and logical way, one that doesn't have any holes in it and everything has a plausible explanation.

While it may sound like a given for a decent novel, you'd be surprised (or not if you read thrillers often) how many writers out there will have you shaking your head and rolling your eyes in utter disbelief.

The Final Verdict

With everything said and done, Harlan Coben shows us once again why he is one of the most celebrated authors of today. Home is a top-notch thriller that gets a perfect score in every category.

It does what it sets out to do with perfection, giving a captivating mystery that keeps you engaged throughout the whole read and makes you yearn ever-more for the resolution the further in you get.

The characters in the novel, its pace and realism all come together seamlessly with the plot and give us something worth more than the sum of its parts.

If you want to see Harlan Coben at his best and a thriller that will suck you in like there's no tomorrow, then I strongly suggest you get this novel.

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Harlan Coben Personal site Harlan Coben is an American author whose body of work mainly revolves around thrillers and mystery novels. In many cases he seems to want to explore unresolved events of the past, an approach which won him multiple awards, including the 1996 Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original.