Ready, set… oh, Man! Now ya’ tell me! Get all geared up for something special only to find out it isn’t nearly what you expected. Remember your first taste of Guinness? Your first 3-D movie (actually, these days some of them ARE pretty special!)…
I was deciding on a book to read and picked up Harlan Coben’s Play Dead. After scanning the back cover and all that marketing prose designed to get me to buy the book, I thought, “why not?”
Got home and cracked opened (figuratively speaking) the front cover. The first page offers “A Note from the Author.” Coben admits “this is, for better or worse, the exact book” – his first novel, written while he was in his twenties. It’s repackaged, and shaped into a $9.95 paperback. His publisher also has an audio version, and maybe a hardback to boot.
It’s all designed to take advantage of the popularity of Harlan Coben and make money for the publisher.
As a first novel, it isn’t bad really. Some of it is admittedly preposterous, but his writing – even back then – compels the reader to forge onward. Where was the editor?
From the Prologue: “…he felt something metallic against the back of his head.” Later (p. 124), a witness recounts, “I saw the gun pressed against my dad’s temple.” Still later (p. 505), the killer recalls “I placed the gun against his forehead.” It is the same crime, recounted by an author who cannot remember his own details. Should have been caught before publication.
Those aren’t the only mistakes in the book, but are certainly among the most obvious. When I hit the second reference to the murder and the gun, I had to stop, turn back the pages, and re-read the first account to clear up my confusion. Only it wasn’t my confusion.
Imagine if Labron James disappeared and then six months later somebody with the same height, weight, basketball skills, and habits showed up and tried out for Cleveland (or Miami). His face looks different, but other than that you’d swear he was Labron James, maybe with plastic surgery. Same friends and everything. The new guy has no past. Never seen before, high school or college. Now he’s breaking NBA records. Where’s Labron?
Where do you think?
Note to Harlan Coben (at age twenty-something): you’ll be much better at plot development and detail later, and your skills at providing a twist ending will go off the chart. In Play Dead, if you’d been playing basketball like your protagonist, your telegraphed moves so early in the game would have cost you the win. Practice, practice, practice.
Note to Harlan Coben (current age): shame on you for allowing this to be released as something new. The disclaimer – even on the first inside page – isn’t enough to offset the disappointment of a recycle. It’s a great look into the progress of a successful writer, but little else.
If you want to buy this one, get the First Edition 1990. That book, at least, has redeeming values.