A novel succeeds--or fails--because of its characters. Hats off to Harlan Coben, an occasional favorite of Janet Maslin's, for inventing some memorable characters in his new bestseller, "Run Away":
-Simon, a dad who has lost his daughter, apparently to a cult. Simon is smart but he makes mistakes--so it's easy enough to identify with him. In the first scene, we watch him scoping out the homeless drug dealer who seems to have brainwashed his now-missing daughter. Unwisely, Simon punches this man. (We all can relate.) The scene is caught on YouTube, and it becomes something it really isn't, for millions of viewers: a story of a smug rich min assaulting a harmless poor kid. And so Simon's fate is sealed; he is doomed to a difficult future, or at least a difficult span of three hundred pages.
-Simon's high-powered lawyer. She understands precisely how minds work, and how often there's a gap between perception and reality. She offers Simon an over-priced frozen cookie sandwich, explains that his life will be hell for several days, and also mentions that short attention spans will win the day (the news cycle will erase Simon's error quickly enough). The lawyer is like a Janet Malcolm figure--calm, sensible, hard-edged--and it's especially delightful to see her squaring off with an excellent Bronx-based cop. ("We *could* take this interview elsewhere....but then you'll need to wait a bit before I can tell you about the corpse I just found....a corpse that may be your client's daughter....")
-The sinister, shady couple. He claims to have had a vibrant past in Italy, where he helped to conceive his (now-drug-addled) son. His second wife seems not to like him very much, and she spends her time at a strange bar, which is possibly a front for some drug operations. Also, if you get her drunk, she'll mention, in a stage whisper, that--in fact--her husband has never been to Italy. Who wouldn't want to continue reading about these two lunatics?
Beyond the eccentric characters, there's a delightful eye for detail. Irritated with a pointlessly rude secretary, Simon snaps, "You've been a pleasure." The ancient secretary does not pause; she says, "I aim to please!" You sense that Harlan Coben walks through the world with wide eyes, and he takes notes. He pauses to observe that "Strawberry Fields," in Central Park, isn't really big enough to be *one* field; it's certainly not a series of fields. Coben observes that apparently aimless Central Park musicians actually follow a tight schedule to ensure that no one stomps on another's terrain. (The gap between the apparent freewheeling style of these artists and their secret professionalism clearly captivates Coben.) Also, Coben makes a feast of a crime scene: If the corpse has his pockets turned out, it suggests that he was robbed *after* the murder. If he was slaughtered near his car, then maybe the killer didn't pull up and park; if the killer had parked, wouldn't the victim have approached (and wouldn't he have died far from his *own* car, in this case) --?
We're not talking about Tolstoy or Henry James here, but Harlan Coben enjoys telling a story, and he has a functional brain. Sometimes, that's all you need for a few hours of fun reading...
-Simon, a dad who has lost his daughter, apparently to a cult. Simon is smart but he makes mistakes--so it's easy enough to identify with him. In the first scene, we watch him scoping out the homeless drug dealer who seems to have brainwashed his now-missing daughter. Unwisely, Simon punches this man. (We all can relate.) The scene is caught on YouTube, and it becomes something it really isn't, for millions of viewers: a story of a smug rich min assaulting a harmless poor kid. And so Simon's fate is sealed; he is doomed to a difficult future, or at least a difficult span of three hundred pages.
-Simon's high-powered lawyer. She understands precisely how minds work, and how often there's a gap between perception and reality. She offers Simon an over-priced frozen cookie sandwich, explains that his life will be hell for several days, and also mentions that short attention spans will win the day (the news cycle will erase Simon's error quickly enough). The lawyer is like a Janet Malcolm figure--calm, sensible, hard-edged--and it's especially delightful to see her squaring off with an excellent Bronx-based cop. ("We *could* take this interview elsewhere....but then you'll need to wait a bit before I can tell you about the corpse I just found....a corpse that may be your client's daughter....")
-The sinister, shady couple. He claims to have had a vibrant past in Italy, where he helped to conceive his (now-drug-addled) son. His second wife seems not to like him very much, and she spends her time at a strange bar, which is possibly a front for some drug operations. Also, if you get her drunk, she'll mention, in a stage whisper, that--in fact--her husband has never been to Italy. Who wouldn't want to continue reading about these two lunatics?
Beyond the eccentric characters, there's a delightful eye for detail. Irritated with a pointlessly rude secretary, Simon snaps, "You've been a pleasure." The ancient secretary does not pause; she says, "I aim to please!" You sense that Harlan Coben walks through the world with wide eyes, and he takes notes. He pauses to observe that "Strawberry Fields," in Central Park, isn't really big enough to be *one* field; it's certainly not a series of fields. Coben observes that apparently aimless Central Park musicians actually follow a tight schedule to ensure that no one stomps on another's terrain. (The gap between the apparent freewheeling style of these artists and their secret professionalism clearly captivates Coben.) Also, Coben makes a feast of a crime scene: If the corpse has his pockets turned out, it suggests that he was robbed *after* the murder. If he was slaughtered near his car, then maybe the killer didn't pull up and park; if the killer had parked, wouldn't the victim have approached (and wouldn't he have died far from his *own* car, in this case) --?
We're not talking about Tolstoy or Henry James here, but Harlan Coben enjoys telling a story, and he has a functional brain. Sometimes, that's all you need for a few hours of fun reading...
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