Reviews

U tvoje ime by Harlan Coben

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katykelly's review against another edition

3.0

Multiple genres: an involved policeman, a disappearance, a conspiracy

I read a Coben years ago and thought I"d try one of his stand-alones. I'm not much of a thriller reader but like them occasionally. This moved along nicely, with intrigue and mystery, just begging you to make guesses as to what was going on and who was at the heart of the conspiracy.

Nap(olean) Dumas, yes, his real name, is the policeman who finds himself investigation a case that seems to have a connection to the death of his brother and girlfriend, and the disappearance of his own girlfriend, from a decade ago. The past needs dredging up, and his own never-forgotten love may be closer than he could have hoped.

It seemed to be a fairly straightforward mystery story, but then a military base came into the story, and as you could see a 'villain' rearing his/her head, a new tangent showed that there might be more layers than expected to the solution.

While I liked Nap, his world-weariness at times, his humour, I didn't get caught up in the story and the multi-stranded ending/solution was a little frustrating.

I remember my last Coben had some rather over-the-top torture elements, and I thought this one was heading that way but stopped short of becoming graphic. The book finished and I felt a little let down, though it all wrapped up well and everything was explained.

Maybe its just not quite my cup of tea, but it was an easy read, with a good mystery element and some strong characters (mainly Nap), but enjoyable enough. If you're a fan, I'm sure this will be a great new book by Coben.

With thanks to Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

debbiecollectsbooks's review against another edition

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4.0

Love all the Harlan Coben books!

edshara's review against another edition

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3.0

The intro to this book is pretty great and had me immediately hooked. Then we got to the main narration and it threw me off a bit and it took a couple of chapters to settle back in. Our main character, Nap, tells the story, but it just makes him seem cocky and unlikable.

The mystery at times felt ridiculous and too predictable, but Harlan Coben, had a few surprises and that made this worth the read.

mheckman0429's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I was really into this story. I loved the mystery and suspense. I had some theories, some that turned out partially true, but none that were 100 percent correct.

paulabrandon's review against another edition

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1.0

When I think of Harlan Coben, I think of twisty mystery thrillers about ordinary people blindsided by the secrets that lie below the surface in the everyday suburbia they live in. I certainly don't think of hackneyed, YA-style conspiracy thrillers involving secret missile military bases. What the heck happened here? Did Harlan Coben even write this?

But, sadly, I'm pretty sure he did. For about the umpteenth time for Coben, this features a protagonist mourning the disappearance of the person they loved. In this case, it's Nap (Napoleon) Dumas, a cop who still hasn't got over the disappearance of high school girlfriend Maura 15 years ago. When her fingerprints are found at the site of a murder scene, in which the victim was another school chum, Nap figures this is a way to find out what really happened to her. It's also a chance, he believes, to find out the truth about the death of his twin brother, Leo, 15 years ago, and Leo's girlfriend Diana. They died right around the same time as Maura disappeared. So it all has to be connected, right?

After a promising start, this just descends into monotony, repetition and silliness. A conspiracy around a missile military base and the secrets that might have gone on in there? Really?!? There's no real story. No surprises. No plot twists. Just Nap going from person to person and most of them saying, "You don't want to know the truth," or, "You have no clue," or something equally dumb and evasive, because otherwise there wouldn't be a book. It's not particularly interesting or clever when the only reason a book exists is because several characters know everything and just choose to be silent about it. And one thing that really, really bugged me

Spoiler

if Andy Reeves was involved in the top secret torture of terror suspects, why the fuck is he still hanging around in the same town where he did it and carrying out a seemingly high-profile career as a for-hire piano player under his real name?!?

It was just unbelievably stupid.

Nap wasn't my favourite of Coben's protagonists, either. To me, he came across as an uppity jerk who thinks the sun shines out his own butt. Coben tries to soften this with a laughable vigilante side-plot in which Nap goes after the scum of society to help others. WTF? And what was with that pointless, gratuitous Myron Bolitar cameo?

I save up Harlan Coben's books for when I'm in a bit of a reading rut. So maybe I went into this with my expectations too high? I don't know, but I certainly didn't expect to get one of the more tiresome, pointless and silly books of recent memory from this otherwise talented story-teller. Maybe stay away from the government/military conspiracy plots, Harlan.