Book Review: Harlan Coben’s “The Final Detail”

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Richard H. McBee Jr.

I love a book that starts off with a first sentence that is like a three pronged hook that just reaches out and grabs you and leaves you flopping like a carp on the line. Where else but in a Harlan Coben book do you get as starter like this: “Myron lay sprawled next to a knee-knockingly gorgeous brunette clad only in a Class-B-felony bikini….” You got me even though she really didn’t have a lot to do with the murder!

Then I love the hulk-sized lady wrestler, Big Cyndi, who is big, tough, ugly as sin, yet smart enough to save all Myron’s info when the cops snag his computers. What a gal, faithful and willing to act as backup if Myron doesn’t have his alter-ego Win available.

Esmeralda is innocent from the start, Myron knows it, Big Cyndi knows it, yet she’s framed so completely that it really looks like she’s going to get fried for the murder of Myron’s baseball pitching client, Clu Haide. As a tag-team wrestling partner with Big Cyndi she can take care of herself.

Now the real character who kind of sends chills down your back is Myron’s alter-ego friend, Win. A man rich enough to find a guy hiding out in the Caribbean on a lonely island with the bikini girl. A guy who is passively aggressive to the point of your not knowing when he will take on the next couple of thugs in a pizza parlor, shoot up the town, intimidate a mobster, or just remove someone to clear the air a bit.

Coben has a knack for writing this kind of adventure, detective fiction and is well worth reading whether you are one a plane, at home or out with the lady in the B-Class felony bikini.

[[ASIN:1589827139 Rough Enough: Including Richard H. Clow’s Letters and Diary from the Civil and Indian Wars, 1865 – 1875]]