Play Dead - Harlan Coben

Having selected this novel from a pile of offerings by this author, I wish I had bothered to read the introduction before checking it out of the library. It begins like this:

“Okay, if this is the first book of mine you’re going to try, stop now. Return it. Grab another. It’s okay. I’ll wait.”

Coben goes on to explain that he wrote the book 20 years ago and has not edited it since. He states that it is flawed and implies that it is rather poorly written, but reassures the reader that he still loves this book. I hadn’t read anything by him before so I thought that I’d still give this a whirl. Frankly, I wish I’d listened to his advice.

The premise

A ridiculously gorgeous and rich model turned supremely successful business woman secretly marries a stupidly handsome and rich pro athlete at the top of his career. While on their secret honeymoon, David disappears and it soon transpires that he has drowned. Or has he? Driven by her grief, Laura is compelled to discover exactly what happened to her new husband, even if it means drawing a killer’s attention to her.

My thoughts

The prologue gave an immediate flavour of the writing style: clichéd and overly dramatic. Set 29 years earlier than the main storyline, it clearly directed my attention to the past as an important element of the plot. Stylistically, it reminded me of the opening sequence of a horror movie (or even a Point Horror story!) as an unidentified woman argues with a man who is then murdered by an unseen hand. It succeeded in inducing some curiosity from me but was very poorly written, as was the whole book.

The opening chapter launched me into the world of the rich and famous. Personally, this alienated me a little from the start as I would rather read about ‘real’ people. A top model and a pro athlete just makes it all seem a bit Jackie Collins - especially as the first scene opens on the special couple’s honeymoon with them joking about how worn out they are. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge!) Oh - and the ex model, who retired at 23, was Businesswoman of the Year. The characters reminded me of a high school novel that focused on the homecoming queen and top jock. Obviously, there are real people who are incredibly talented, but this just felt very one dimensional and I found it difficult to care about these characters.

I quickly found the focus on physical beauty and admiration rather tedious, (yes, they’re gorgeous, I understand that, now please stop writing about their glistening skin,) and the clunking sexual puns could be spotted several lines ahead of their wince-inducing dénouement. Early on, David actually uses the cliché 'you've made me the happiest man in the world' followed by 'I couldn't live without you’. I felt like I was reading a Mills and Boon offering. This insistence on physical beauty continues throughout. Take the following example:

“When Laura and [close friend] Serita entered the Heritage of Boston Bank together, everyone stopped. Typewriters halted their clacking. Heads turned. Eyes stared. Mouths dropped. Men gawked. Walking alone, Laura and Serita could make a man’s eyes water; looking at them both at the same time could cause a cerebral accident.”

It makes me wonder how they made it to the bank without causing traffic accidents. This actually isn’t the whole description, but you get the idea. This is very bad chicklit pretending to be good crime fiction.

From the opening it is clear that David’s disappearance is more complicated than the tragic shark death (yes, really) his policeman friend sadly reveals to the grieving widow. Switches in third person perspective make it clear that Laura is right to be suspicious: everyone around her seems to have secrets related to her husband’s disappearance. Why is some of David’s money missing? Who is the new mystery player who has taken David’s spot on the team? And why was Laura’s mother so firmly against her relationship with David?

The trouble is, although there are a lot of questions, the answers are disconcertingly obvious to the reader (at least, they were to me, and I deliberately read crime fiction with my brain switched off) and despite Coben’s best efforts at introducing twists and turns into the plot, from about a fifth of the way through I had most of the answers. Furthermore, a fifth of the way through was 100 pages; this book needed a better editor as it would have felt a lot more tightly paced if it was a good 100-150 pages shorter.

The characters are firmly one dimensional, which is how Coben justifies his ludicrous conclusion. David is motivated purely by his love of Laura; Laura is driven by her love of David; and everyone else is determined to keep secrets from the past locked away. Motivations are incredibly simplistic and do not feel sufficient, even if you assume that several of the characters are insane. The most interesting character and exception to the rule is Stan, David’s brother and a weasel who tries to better himself. His slips back into being an evil idiot are perhaps inevitable but I found he added some interest to an otherwise bland cast. That said…his romantic and moral path was ultimately rather predictable.

Final thoughts

Predictable plotting and one dimensional characterisation do not have to equal a bad novel, but I would struggle to identify a redeeming feature in this instance. The writing style is poor: clunky, clichéd and lacking variety in sentence structure. The book is too long and feels over written. I would probably still try a later Coben work as reviews I have read online suggest that this is not typical of his oeuvre, but I was disappointed with this and won’t be rushing to read another. If you’ve never read anything by him and would like to try, I’d follow his advice: don’t start with this one.