Darkest Fear (A Myron Bolitar novel) [Paperback]

Darkest Fear represents an interesting transition between Coben's comparatively lightweight and formulaic early novels and his more recent, nervier and darker novels such as Tell No One and Gone for Good. It is part of the series dealing with the misadventures of Myron Bolitar, sports agent and occasional investigator, but this time Myron has more than the convenience of his clients on his mind. An old girlfriend turns up with the revelation that her son is dying for a bone-marrow transplant--and that the son is his. Myron has always had an overdeveloped sense of personal responsibility and this time it goes into overdrive. He, and his efficiently violent friend Win, find themselves involved with one of the richest and most secretive families in America, with a particularly brutal serial kidnapper and murderer and with the FBI on one of its off days.

Coben takes his wise-cracking series hero and puts him in real physical and emotional jeopardy--the book is impressive, and a decisive break with the formula he had established earlier. After this, gloomier and more dangerous books were inevitable, and protagonists less fundamentally cheerful than the ebullient Myron. --Roz Kaveney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review in SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE August 2003 Review in BRADFORD TELEGRAPH & ARGUS

Life isn't going well for Myron Bolitar. His business is struggling, and his father, recently recovered from a heart attack, is facing his own mortality - and forcing Myron to face it too. Then comes another surprise. Emily Downing, Myron's college sweetheart, reappears in his life with devastating news: her thirteen-year-old son Jeremy is gravely ill and can be saved only by a bone-marrow transplant - from a donor who has vanished without trace. Before Myron can absorb this revelation, Emily hits him with an even bigger shocker: Jeremy is Myron's son, conceived the night before Emily's wedding to another man. Staggered by the news, Myron plunges into a search for the missing donor. But for Myron, finding the only person who can save the boy's life means cracking open a mystery as dark as it is heartbreaking - a mystery that involves a broken family, a brutal kidnapping spree, and a cat-and-mouse game between an ambitious reporter and the FBI.

Harlan Coben was the first ever author to win all three major crime awards in the US, and has established a best-selling series of crime novels starring his powerful creation, Myron Bolitar. He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and four children.