Book Review 

Coben, Harlan (2009); Long Lost
By Derryll White

I read a Harlan Coben novel a long time ago, featuring Myron Bolitar and his rich, psychopathic friend Windsor Horne Lockwood III.  And of course I sell his novels when working in Lotus Books.  So, on my extended wandering time in Sweden, Coben seemed a natural choice to check out of the local library.  Their English-language selection is impressive, but limited enough that it pushed me out of normal reading patterns.
Harlan Coben is a good writer, a master of his craft. Some of his descriptions of love and sex are among the best I have read – simple, moving and real, not excessively graphic. His story in this novel moves with speed and grace to conclusion.  Do you want to see the potentially very dark side of Homeland Security?  Coben, an American writer, will show it to you here.  He takes the United States internal horror of and battle against international terrorism to new heights (or depths).  His conclusion is quite jarring.
I do like his writing.  He is funny and insightful.  He has the knack of finding quirky quotes and using them to advantage as he inserts them into his ongoing story.  The reader may ask if in the end, is it believable?  Maybe, maybe not. Myron Bolitar comes off as super lucky, almost super human.  Is the premise regarding terrorism believable?  You will have to read ‘Long Lost’ and decide for yourself.
I enjoyed the novel and now understand why we sell so much Harlan Coben at Lotus Books.  He is a smooth storyteller and an interesting and challenging writer.  I have added him to my “must read” list.
Excerpts from the novel:
PHOTOGRAPHY – “I must tell you.  I don’t like digital photography.  For your little girl, I want to use a classic box camera.  There is such a texture to the work.”
EYES – I’m not a big believer in the eyes being the windows of the soul.  I’ve known too many psychos who could fool you to rely on such pseudoscience.  But the sadness was so obvious in Teresda’s eyes.

BASKETBALL – I love the feel of the pebbled leather on your fingertips; that moment of neo-religious purity when your eyes lock on the front rim and you release the ball and it backspins and there is nothing else in the entire world.

YOU KNOW HIM – One father, sitting two rows in front of us, had what Win and I had nicknamed “spectator Tourette’s”, spending the entire game seemingly unable to stop himself from berating everyone around him out loud.

LIFE – There is an old Yiddish phrase I find apropos – but not by choice: “Man plans, God laughs.”

SEX – My mind flashed to the Carribean island, but mostly it flashed – let’s be honest here – to the thing that truly defined us: the soul-piercing sex.  That desperate cla<wing and shredding that makes you understand, in a totally non-sadomasochistic way, how pain – emotional pain – and pleasure not only intermingle but amplify each other.

PARIS – Paris was like the beautiful woman who knew she was beautiful, liked the fact that she was beautiful and, ergo, didn’t have to try so hard.  She was fabulous, and you both knew it.

LOVE – When we kissed, there was a surge and then a release, a letting-go like I had never known before, a letting-go like you are staying very still and surrendering and your heart pounds against your rib cage and your pulse races and your knees grow weak and your toes curl up and your ears pop and every part of you relaxes and happily gives in.

CHEATING – Of course it wasn’t just the French.  There was that New York politician who got caught drunk driving on his way to visit his second family.  Men have kids with their mistresses all the time.

TRUTH – “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,” I said.

CEMETERY – You would think that all that misery, all the tears that have been shed there – have you ever stopped and thought about that at a graveyard?  How many people have cried.

LOVE – How had that Snow Patrol song put it a couple of years back?  Those three words, they say so much, they’re not enough.  Baloney, they were enough.

PSYCHOLOGY – I came from the Blame Generation where we all supposedly disliked our parents and found in their actions all the reasons why we ourselves are unhappy adults.

SELF – “There is a Gereek expression: the humpback never sees the hump in his own back.”
….that expression is talking about flaws.  We are quick to find flaws in others.  We aren’t so good with ourselves.  We are also poor judges of our own abilities….

BRAIN – The mind can be pretty goofy and ornery.  Logic is never linear.  It dashes to and fro and bounces off walls and makes hairpin turns and gets lost during detours.  Anything can be a catalyst, usually something unrelated to the task at hand, ricocheting your thoughts into an unexpected direction – a direction that inevitably leads to a solution linear thinking could never have approached.

LOVE – “God, I missed you,” she says.
I hug her back.  That’s all.  I don’t weant to say anything.  Not yet.  I want to melt into this hug.  I want to disappear into it and stay in her arms forever.  I know deep in my soul that this is where I belong, holding her, and for just a few moments, I want and need that peace.

MARRIAGE – “Have you ever been married?”
“Nope.  You?”
He smiles.  “Four times.”
“Wow.”
“All ended in divorce.  I don’t regret a single one.”
“Would your ex-wives say the same?”
“I doubt it.  But we’re friends now.  I’m not good with keeping women, just getting them.”

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