"...Please take that as both a sign of disrespect and a pointed reminder of my casual illiteracy. Which enrages you more?"

Kyle's Favorite Books of the 90s: please note that the title is not "Best Books of the 90s" (though they are for me), as I realize just how subjective this can be (of course, you don't see me re-naming my music or TV lists, do you?)

Honourable Mention: Gerald's Game by Stephen King (man, this book totally skeeved me out); Dark Tower III: The Waste Land by Stephen King (very good, but paled in comparison to The Drawing of the Three, my favorite King book and one of my twenty favorite books ever); the first half of Four Past Midnight by Stephen King ( The Langoliers and Secret Garden, Secret Window were both terrific--that said, I can't remember a single thing about the other two stories, The Library Policeman and The Sun Dog); The Death of Superman by various writers (now, look, I wrote a paper about this as an undergrad, so it probably deserves a spot on the list, but, the more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards the fact that "Superman dying" worked better as an idea (or a talking point...or a news story) than the actual story surrounding his death. (Put another way: the notion of it greatly exceeded the execution.) Go on, tell me that you read the entire "Reign of the Supermen." No, you didn't....because it was too long and dragged out--in fact, if you read Les Daniels's Superman: The Complete History, you'll discover that DC deliberately dragged it out longer than the writers wanted, since it was such a hit.); Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg (note: I'm positive this would've charted on my list had my copy not been cruelly stolen from me while I was waiting to collect my bags at Pearson after an 18-hour flight from Australia. Damn you, airport thief! I hadn't even gotten to the kidnapping! How did it turn out?); Silent Partner by Jonathan Kellerman (my guilty pleasure of the 90s--especially memorable because I was in Los Angeles while reading about the seedy side of L.A--"hey, look, mom and dad, it's Sunset Boulevard! That's where Dr. Delaware found the murdered hooker!!"--does not chart solely on the basis of me not being able to remember a single important plot point...which is a pretty good reason, all things considered.)

25. Hard Courts (1991)/A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour (1993) by John Feinstein: the former is worth it for the stuff about McEnroe alone (including the shocking revelation that Mac--in his last, best chance to win one more major title--was DQ'd in the 4th round of the Australian Open for swearing at the chair umpire--if this happened today, it would lead off PTI for a week...), plus the inside scoop on how horribly corrupt the sport was in the early 90s (fun fact: Feinstein, a former writer for Tennis Magazine, was so soured by his experience writing Hard Courts that he pretty much gave up on tennis forever after its publication), while the latter introduced the general public to the concept of Q School (and endeared the likes of obscure players such as Brian Henninger andPaul Goydos to thousands of readers). Talking about this too much kind of makes me sad, as I think that Feinstein is really just going through the motions at this point, and should probably stick to TV work and dropping F-bombs during Navy Football radio broadcasts. Ah, well.

23. The Firm by John Grisham (1991): ah, yes...mock away, but remember, this isn't called "the 25 Best Pieces of Literature of the 90s," so escapism is fair game, and this--released in 1991--is escapism at its very (or near) best. I recall devouring this book over a weekend and developing an unhealthy (mostly because I was 12 at the time and wouldn't have my first drink for four more years) fixation (which remains unsated) with Red Stripe (the drink of choice during protagonist Mitch McDermott's sojourns to Jamaica). Yes, the movie was poor. Yes, A Time to Kill is arguably better. Yes, Grisham has more than likely been replaced by a sentient novel and script writing computer program in the last dozen or so years...but The Firm was a thriller in every sense of the word. (Note: I haven't read this since it came out, and it's entirely possibly it's aged incredibly poorly--remember: Civ Pro II pretty much ruined Damages for me--but so what? It was good fun at the time.)

22. Fatherland by Robert Harris (1992): if for no other reason than it proves that you can write interesting and engaging counter-factual history without relying on Mole People, Cro-Magnons, or apes. Poses the question: what would the world be like had the Nazis prevailed in WW2, Hitler never died, and the Holocaust never been discovered? (OK, technically that's three questions.) More chilling than thrilling (and only partly because, in this alternate reality, Joseph P. Kennedy is the U.S. President--shudder) it has one of the most memorable (and bleakest!) endings I've ever come across.

21. Microserfs by Douglas Coupland (1995):(continuing my habit of bitching about things I ostensibly seek to praise...) the last (only?) good thing he'll ever write? Quite possibly. I went on a real Coupland kick after reading this, but most of it disappointed (Shampoo Planet. Gen X) or was just a total mind-fuck (Girlfriend in a Coma). Carrie had great things to say about Life After God, and others have touted Miss Wyoming and Hey, Nostradamus, so maybe I'm selling him short. This one really resonated with me at the time, even though 95% (ok, I had a 386 at the time, so really: all) of the computer stuff was over my head. Probably the best workplace novel in history (though Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End, released last year, made a laudable effort--I highly recommend).

20. Animal Man (Issue #19 through #26) by Grant Morrison (1990): ooooo, provocative! This storyline, conceived by Grant Morrison (the uber-talented but wildly uneven writer who, depending on the month, is either doing a great job (issues 1 and 2) or totally butchering (issue 3) Final Crisis, DC's current maxi-series) tackled the very cool question of: what if a comic book character realized he was a comic book character? It started with Animal Man--an admittedly kinda lame comic book hero by the name of Buddy Baker who can take on the attributes of animals he is near--discovering that his family has been brutally murdered and it culminates in Buddy breaking the fourth wall (in #26--an outstanding issue) and confronting Morrison (i.e. the person who decided to kill off his family). The ending I won't spoil, aside from saying that it's handled perfectly. Pretty solid proof (along with #15 on this list) that people who don't take (certain) comics seriously should hit up Sterling Cooper for a job.

19. A Widow for One Year by John Irving (1998): I'm kind of making this pick under duress, since Irving has to be included, but I wouldn't categorize this as even one of his three or four best (Curious? A Prayer for Owen Meany; The Hotel New Hampshire; The World According to Garp; and The Cider House Rules are all superior). But the first third here--focusing on Ruth, her parents (Ted and Marion), and Eddie--is very strong. (This first section is apparently the basis for the indie film The Door in the Floor, which, somehow, I didn't see. Did anyone? Was it good? Shuk, I'm guessing you saw it. It sounds like it should be good...)

18. All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (1992): ok, fine, the so-called "Border Trilogy" is pretty damn overrated (The Crossing, which follows ATPH has precisely one really good scene...and is completely forgettable aside from that; Cities of the Plain--#3--is better...and altogether heartbreaking, but feels too padded by half), but All The Pretty Horses, which, truth be told, I didn't read until January of this year, is gorgeous.

"She put the horse forward and came on and as she came abreast of him he touched the brim of his hat with his forefingers and nodded and he thought she would go past but she did not. She stopped and turned her wide face to him. Skeins of light off the water played upon the black hide of the horse. He sat the sweating stallion like a highwayman under her gaze. She was waiting for him to speak and afterwards he would try to remember what it was he'd said. He only knew it made her smile and that had not been his intent. She turned and looked off across the lake where the late sun glinted and she looked back at him and at the horse (p. 131-32)."

Not sure if that really comes across in such a small excerpt, but: such a deceptively simple passage, which actually conveys everything you could possibly need to know about their nascent relationship. McCarthy is the master of the economy of words.

17. First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton by David Maraniss (1996): I like this book so much more than the man it's about. I seem to have misplaced my copy, but I recall lots of juicy bits about disorganized Bill was (including the famous story that, when he was a law professor at the University of Arkansas, he was such a procrastinator that while his students were working on page one of his final exam, he was frantically writing--and, I guess, though never stated, photocopying--page two. That's so good that it almost has to be apocryphal). Good stuff too about Bill's time as a Rhodes Scholar (where Oxford's academic freedom almost crushed him) and the occasionally chilly nature of Bill and Hil's marriage (I know, you're stunned). Of note is the time--and I swear this is in the book--that Bill plays with Chelsea while singing Dolly Parton's "D-I-V..." under his breath. Good times.

16. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (1990): you know all the cool stuff that didn't make it into the movie? Malcolm's extended riff on chaos theory (replaced in the film by Goldblum creepily hitting on Laura Dern hardcore, even though her boyfriend (Sam Neill) was right next to her in that jeep) and the reason why the computers weren't working properly (they weren't accounting for increases in the dinosaur population)? That's what made the book awesome--taut, tense, and genuinely surprising (whereas the movie--scoring an altogether too high 7.8 on imdb--was basically just a two-hour ILM infomercial). I'm tempted to put this a bit lower since the sequel (in book form) was atrocious, and even worse on screen (to this day, it's the closest I've ever come to walking out of the cinema--if you're curious, it's when the girl started using gymnastics moves to take down the velicoraptor), but that would be unfair.

15. Worlds' End: The Sandman, Vol. VIII by Neil Gaiman (1993): This may well strike people as fanboyish (or, worse, as a desperate attempt to be hip), but I can live with that. You could make a case that I should probably include the whole series here, but I think it skews things a bit too much (for list purposes, at least) to include the entire saga, which spans seventy-five issues and eight or so years. (Also, to my great shame, despite owning the complete collection, I've only read three of the volumes--this, #1, and #2--in their entirety.) Issue #54, which is called "The Golden Boy" (though, oddly, not about Rick Mirer) tells the story of Prez Rickard, an eighteen year old who becomes President (this was based on a forgotten--and by all accounts: atrocious--comic that was published in the early 70s, though that one featured an eighteen year old Prez as Prez whose intense paranoia made Nixon look like Dave in comparison) and is absolutely mesmerizing. Easily one of the five best standalone issues I've ever read.

14. A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe (1998): First things first: does this book pale in comparison to The Bonfire of the Vanities? Definitely. Am I troubled by the fact that Wolfe hasn't written a single thing of consequence (or, in the case of the article about mutual fund planners appearing in Portfolio last year: anything that's readable) in the ten years since AMiF was released (see in particular the execrable I Am Charlotte Simmons)? Absolutely. Neither point, however, changes the fact that AMiF kinda kicked ass. (And though these are words that I'm sure I'll look back on ruefully in six years: I remain gobsmacked that this hasn't been made into a movie. Is it because Bonfire was the worst cinematic adaptation of a great literary work in history? Oh.)

13. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (1995): this may be unpopular, but screw it: this is not as good as About a Boy. That said, the book's protagonist (Rob Fleming) is a believable and generally (except when he's being a heel) likeable guy. Of course, any narrator who has a predilection for listing things will always have a soft spot in my heart...

12. The Green Mile by Stephen King (1996): dunno if it was the way it was rolled out (serialized over six months, a la Charles Dickens), that King broke format (barely any horror elements to speak of), or if he was just really on his game, but I thought this was absolutely tremendous, in larger part because King absolutely nailed the ending (part six is virtually perfect).

11. Timeline by Michael Crichton (1999): forget the only ok movie, this book just goes. This is clamoring to be remade as a six-part HBO (hell, I'd settle for FX) mini-series. Make it happen.

10. Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War by David M. Kennedy (1999): Includes some of the best history writing around. The following is about the "typical" American male (culled from census data) in 1930:

"Raised in the country without flush toilers or electric lighting, as the 1920s opened he moved to the city, to an apartment miraculously plumbed and wired...Jobs were plentiful for the moment and paid good wages. With hard work he was making a little more than a $100 a month. He had been laid off several times in the preceding years but had built a small cushion of savings at his bank to tide him over when unemployment hit again, as he knew it must. The stock market had just crashed, but it seemed to be recovering, and in any case he owned no stocks--for that matter, neither did anybody he knew. Evenings he "radioed." Weekeneds he went to the movies, better now that they had sound. Sometimes he broke the law and lifted a glass. On his one day a week off, he took a drive in the car that he was buying on the installment plan.

He was living better than his parents had ever dreamed of living. He was young and vigorous; times were good. He had just cast his first presidential vote, in 1928, for Herbert Hoover, the most competent man in America, maybe in the world. In that same year he married a girl three years younger than he. She gave up her job to have their first baby. They started to think of buying a house, perhaps in one of the new suburbs. Life was just beginning.

And their world was about to come apart (p. 42)."

9. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace (1997): a great collection of essays, with topics on a wide array of things: professional tennis, modern literature, serialized TV, a week on a cruise ship (one of the high points--more on that in a bit), trigonometry, state fairs, and David Lynch. The footnotes in particular are altogether delightful.

"Michael Joyce is, in other words, a complete man (though in a grotesquely limited way). But he wants more. Not more completeness; he doesn't think in terms of virtues or transcendence. He wants to be the best, to have his name known, to hold professional trophies over his head as he patiently turns in all four directions for the media. He is an American and he wants to win. He wants this, and he will pay to have it--will pay just to pursue it, let it define him--and will pay with the regretless cheer for whom issues of choice became irrelevant long ago. Already, for Joyce, at 22, it's too late for anything else: he's invested too much, is in too deep. I think he's both luck and un-. He will say he is happy and mean it. Wish him well (p. 254-55)."

8. Means of Ascent: LBJ, Volume II by Robert Caro (1990): you didn't ask, but Caro--hard at work on LBJ vol. 4, one hopes--has written one of the five best books of the 00s (The Master of the Senate: LBJ, Volume III) and of the 80s (The Path to Power: LBJ, Volume I), and the best book of the 70s (The Powerbroker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York). Oh, and these are the only four books he's written. So, yeah...he's a pretty good writer. While it's fun (well, actually, more like "agonizing") to read about LBJ brazenly stealing the 1948 Senate race in Texas (seriously: wars have been more subtle), what really makes this book is that it doubles as a biography of one of the most interesting historical figures you've probably never heard about: former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson (and LBJ's opponent in '48), who was kind of like Roy Rogers, if Roy Rogers were totally fucking awesome.

7. About a Boy by Nick Hornby (1998): What I remember most about AAB is reading outside Thames Hall while waiting to write an exam, being unable to refrain from laughing out loud, and having nervous crammers looking at me like I'd gone insane. I really do wish Hornby still wrote like this. The movie is more than passable--a better adaptation than most--but runs out of steam at the end, inexplicably ditches the book's perfect ending for a far more awkward one, and in the humor department, in comparison, is sorta toothless.

6. The Fifties by David Halberstam (1993): such a brilliant and yet simple idea that it's stunning that no one has ever thought of this before: pick forty or so people, places, movements, things--here: Elvis, Bill Russell, McDonald's, The Feminine Mystique, McCarthy, the pill, the automotive industry, and so forth--and write individual chapters about each. Of course, it helps if you can write like Halberstam, which so few (if any) can. The best chapters are the ones that seemingly come out of nowhere, like his musings on the tragic life of the perennially gin-soaked Grace Metalious, author of the filthy (for its time...and still kinda now) Peyton Place. Maybe the all-time best bathroom book...provided you like to spend five-plus hours on the toilet.

5. Lincoln by David Herbert Donald (1996): OK, so you've probably guessed that I'm a pretty big Lincoln fan (to the point where I've now referenced him in two separate wedding speeches), so this book's inclusion likely isn't a shocker. This is probably the best one-volume Lincoln bio going (best twelve volume bio, by acclimation, goes to Carl Sandburg), and is beautifully written. Enough said.

Quick story: in July 2005, I had been living in South Korea for just over a month...and was fairly miserable. Homesick, drinking too much (I know: you're stunned), and generally feeling pretty sorry for myself. I taught from 12 to 7 Monday to Friday, and counted the minutes until I was done, whereupon I would head home, buy a two-litre bottle (or two) of beer (the absolute best thing about Korea--I'm amazed they haven't started doing this here yet), grab my iPod (I was listening to Set Yourself on Fire, Plans, and Funeral on pretty much an endless loop) sit on my balcony, and read this book. (This went on for about two weeks.) This was the best part of my day, by far...and I will always be grateful for that. And then I met this girl...

4. Truman by David McCullough (1992): I would suggest that it's basically impossible to read this book and not fall sort of in love with Harry Truman. I would also suggest that this is probably a pretty good indication that McCullough goes a bit too far in defending the ever-embattled HST (his stubborness is definitely downplayed--or, at least, is characterized as a virtue far too frequently--and his post-presidency years--where he was, at best, kind of a dick (see his decision not to endorse Stevenson in '56), at worst: batshit insane--are kind of glossed over). Nevertheless, if it isn't quite perfect history, it's a fascinating read, and, at 1,000-plus pages, somehow never drags.

3. In The Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien (1994): fabulous book. Summarized in roughly 50 words, it's: John Wade, a Vietnam vet and up and coming politician, runs for the Senate, but loses as a result of a scandal from his past. He goes to his cottage with his wife, Kathy, whereupon she disappears under mysterious circumstances. What exactly happens to her is never explained, though numerous theories are thrown out there.

In lesser hands, this would be maddening, but O'Brien shrewdly gives the reader just enough information for them to formulate their own ending, even if may not be the "right" one. Some of the best writing I've ever come across here, and lots of juicy meta-textual stuff that demands re-reading.

2. A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt by Geoffrey C. Ward: more than any other book, AFCT is what got me serious about history (that I eventually got decidedly cavalier about history and didn't finish my Ph.D. shouldn't be held against it!). The book, which covers roughly the two decades immediately before he became Governor of New York in 1928 (the title, incidentally, refers to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' impression of FDR, upon meeting him in 1933--"A second-class intellect. But a first-class temperament!"), is astoundingly well-researched...and the prose is even better. I can't recommend this more enthusiastically.

1. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (1996): surprising absolutely no one, I assume. IJ is actually my favorite book ever from my favorite writer, so this was a no-brainer. When asked what it's about, I usually ramble on incoherently for five minutes...so why should I handle it differently here? It's about: a tennis academy in Enfield, Mass.; a rehab centre in same; addiction; North American politics; terrorism; philandering; film study; robberies; chemistry; talk radio; adolescence; a film so entertaining that it's said that if you watch it once, that's all you will want to do for the rest of your life; advertising; and wheelchair assassins. Confused yet?

As you no doubt know, DFW, (it goes without saying:) tragically, took his own life just over a week ago. A couple of people have asked me if I'm going to write some sort of tribute, and the answer is, well, no. When I got Shuk's message in my Facebook inbox (worst. way. ever, incidentally, to find out about something like this, but I digress...), for some reason I immediately thought it was a hoax (my mind wandered to that great Onion bit with the fake DFW break-up letter for some reason...). My second thought was "I can't believe he did this." My third thought was of all his writing about clinical depression (specifically, the stuff about Kate Gompert in IJ and "The Depressed Person"--about the bleakest thing you'll probably ever read...though DFW's obit in the NYT runs a close second--in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men), which led immediately to my fourth thought, mainly: "how did we not see this coming?" I'm still there.

Without (hopefully) being (too) pretentious, smug, or selfish, his death is a major blow to modern American literature. In my heart of hearts, I knew he would never write something as good as Infinite Jest (or, far more likely, never write another novel period), but there was always that glimmer of hope that he might. That that hope is now extinguished bums me out to no end. He will be deeply missed.

Anyway, I think the most constructive thing I can for all five (up from three! It's been a big year!) of my readers is to provide a list of Ten David Foster Wallace things that you absolutely have to read:

DFW's Greatest Hits (in no particular order)

1. Infinite Jest: come on, already! I know it's a daunting task (I started it three times before finishing it), but it's well worth it. And, by the end, you'll actually come to love the endnotes...and even the footnotes and endnotes within those endnotes (I'm not making that up). If you're unconvinced, pick up a (or, hell, borrow my) copy and read the first fourteen pages (Hal interviewing with the University of Arizona) or pages 321-242 (the Eschaton game--which is wickedly funny). You should be hooked by this stage.

2. "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" in ASFTINDA: the cruise ship story. Originally written for Harper's, it's laugh out loud funny throughout. To wit:

"...and the source of all the dissatisfactions isn't the Nadir at all but rather plain old humanly conscious me, or, more precisely, that ur-American part of me that craves and responds to pampering and passive pleasure: the Dissatisfied Infant part of me, the part that always and indiscriminately WANTS. Hence this syndrome by which, for example, just four days after I experienced such embarrassment over the perceived self-indulgence of ordering even more gratis food from Cabin Service that I littered the bed with fake evidence of hard work and missed meals, whereas by last night I find myself looking at my watch in real annoyance after fifteen minutes and wondering where the fuck is that Cabin Service guy with the tray already (p. 315-16)."

3. "Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness" in ASFTINDA: as discussed above.

4. Commencement Address, Kenyon College, 2005: a little more on the nose than some of his other stuff, and a tad obvious in places, but very interesting. The last line pretty much makes the whole speech.

5. "Octet" in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: hypothetical scenarios run amok. Riveting. You can probably safely skip the rest of this, as it's fairly uneven (though the final "Brief Interview"--the next to last story in the collection--is worth reading).

6. "Host" in The Atlantic (2004): note: it also appears in Consider the Lobster, but under different--not as good--formatting. I'd recommend downloading the copy I've linked to.

7. "Little Expressionless Animals" in Girl With Curious Hair: admittedly, this story doesn't quite work, but the concept is so intriguing (girl wins 700 straight games on Jeopardy!, thus destroying the program--and, remember, this came out roughly eight years before we knew who Ken Jennings was) that you probably owe it to yourself to read it.

8. This two-page long sentence in "Mister Squishy" in Oblivion: the entire story is worth checking out, but it's this sentence where DFW really shines.

9. McCain's Promise (2008): going to follow my own advice, since I haven't actually read this one yet. The article it's based on ("Up Simba!" in Consider the Lobster, which, itself, was a lengthier version of a '04 Rolling Stone piece) is quite good, so if you don't feel like shelling out an extra $15 bucks for slightly more material, CTL should do the trick.

10. "Federer as Religious Experience" (2006) in The New York Times Play Magazine: dude knew his tennis.

(Bonus: "The Future of the American Idea" in The Atlantic's 150th Anniversary issue: thought-provoking, yes, but what I really dig is his casual reference to "Federalist 10" in his footnotes. Goddamn, was he cool...)

"I want to set the record straight: I thought the cop was a prostitute."

Obsession (2007) by Jonathan Kellerman

Fair is fair. I was unkind (though not, I'll stress, inaccurate) in my reviews (here and here) of Harlan Coben this summer, whom I likened (or meant to liken) to a poor man's Jonathan Kellerman, pretty much my favorite mystery writer. Well, having just completed Kellerman's latest (Obsession), I think it's safe to say: he's almost completely lost it.

I'll let Wikipedia do some of the heavy lifting: Alex Delaware is the fictional protagonist of Jonathan Kellerman's popular murder mystery series. Alex Delaware is a child psychologist who solves mysteries, often with the help of his best friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis. He has an on again, off again girlfriend, Robin Castagna and a French bulldog, Spike. Spike dies in the novel Gone but is followed by a new French bulldog named Blanche.

Yup.

(btw, spoilers abound here, so don't read this if you plan on reading this book. But, seriously, don't read this book.)

What I liked:

1. Dr. Delaware (for once) doesn't get beaten to within a inch of his life (Milo does this time!). This has been a staple of the series for some time now and, given that Dr. D is supposed to be a stand-in for Kellerman himself--or so I reason--this has a sort of self-loathing element to it. Typically, Delaware will be beaten within an inch of his life (often after he selflessly elects to defend a damsel in distress), at which point he will either: (a) drop some kick-ass judo moves on the assailant (did I neglect to mention that this world-class child psychologist dabbles in martial arts? Perhaps I did. He does.) or (b) lay very still so as to appear dead to all the world, at which point the assailant, somewhat inexplicably, decides to leave. I've seen both several times and, truth be told, there's really no rhyme or reason to which Delaware we'll be treated to (perhaps Kellerman uses a dartboard to decide these matters). At any rate, Delaware escapes unscathed this time around, though Milo, his best friend and, by all accounts, the greatest living detective in history, manages to get shot in the gut when he decides to enter into a potential ambush without pulling out his gun. Oh, right. These are supposed to be the things I liked about the book...

2. Any book in the Delaware series is easy enough to plow through in three days without much (or any) effort at all. It may not be the prettiest prose (more on this in a sec), but it's eminently devourable. This is the same principle that allowed me to motor through Kellerman's previous novel, Gone, while I was in Cuba for Jon and Alex's wedding, despite the fact that I was never sober for more than an hour a day at any point during the weeklong trip. That said, I remember next to nothing about Gone--I seem to recall the villain being, somewhat improbably, an amateur taxidermist--though this could conceivably have nothing to do with my truly prodigous alcohol consumption during said trip.

3. (more of a comment on the series at large) This could've been a tremendous movie series and it bums me out that this was, apparently, never seriously considered. Hollywood has made franchises out of Jim Fucking Varney, hapless police cadets, the childlike ramblings of James Patterson, a dying vigilante with a perplexing fascination with puzzles, a borderline mentally retarded boxer, dreadfully unfunny send-ups of the horror genre, a dystopic future run by machines serving as a backdrop for a cringe-inducing love story...and they really couldn't find a place for (what once were) legitimately psychologically thrilling tales of a bright and handsome child psychologist partnering with an equally brilliant gay detective as they explore the seedy underbelly of 1980s and 90s Los Angeles? The stories practically write themselves! (Note: I'm serious, I think these stories may actually be writing themselves at this point, like Kellerman's typewriter has, unbeknownst to him, become sentient.) You give me a decade, and I'll tell you who could've nailed the leads. 70s? Alan Alda as Delaware, Elliot Gould as Milo (intriguingly, Gould in his thinner days would've made a great Delaware...though Alda as Milo would be completely wrong). 80s and 90s? Ted Danson as Dr. D, and Brendan Gleason as Milo. (Fun fact: turns out that the very first Kellerman novel--When the Bough Breaks, one of the best in the series--was made into a critically well-received TV movie starring none other than Ted Danson. I swear I didn't know this until five minutes ago.) Now? The cast of Reaper (ok, admittedly, this one needs some work.) As for Robin Castagna, Delaware's on-again, off-again super-sexy yet totally devoid of personality live-in girlfriend, I think I'd go with a rather shapely straw broom (any decade).

What I didn't like: oh, boy! Virtually everything else...

1. Needlessly Gruesome at Times. One secondary character in the book relays a scene from his childhood wherein he witnessed the villain, as a teenager, masturbating with animal guts and vomit as lubricant. Dude, that's not chilling, it's just gross....and totally unnecessary.

2. Overwritten in Places, Underwritten in Others. A few weeks back, while cleaning up my parents' basement, Carrie and Taylor stumbled upon a short story written by yours truly at the age of, I believe, 14. Wedged into a truly terrible seven or so page story of a seemingly blind pool hustler who was (wait for it) only pretending to be blind (gasp!) was a remarkably intricate one page description of every corner of the bar, and an uncomfortably thorough description of every article of clothing the protagonist was wearing (sidebar: I think I just wrote about things that I wanted to own at that time, including a powder blue University of North Carolina hoodie). athat My second though (after: "my God! How quickly can I destroy any trace of this ever existing?") was: I must have been reading lots of Jonathan Kellerman. Put differently, 14-year old Kyle wrote elaborate descriptions of settings and clothing choices because that's what he thought good writers did, and because, stylistically, he didn't have a clue. Unfortunately for Kellerman, unless my math is off, he can only rely on the latter. I'll elaborate.

Here's what we know about the leads in Obsession:

(a) Dr. Alex Delaware: psychologist, smart, handsome, witty, rich, jogger, may have a beard, enjoys sex with (c).
(b) Milo Stugis: detective, bright, gay, M.A. in English, fat, ugly, cynical, likes to eat.
(c) Robin Castagna: hot, auburn hair, makes guitars, enjoys sex with (a).

The catalyst for the murder investigation--Tanya, an 18-year old pre-med student--is a total blank slate. Yes, we know that she has OCD, but that is absolutely it. That's not adding depth to characters...it's barely even writing by numbers.

But, on the flip side, we know that Myron Bedard (at best, a tertiary character) house contains a:

room [...] bigger than most homes, walled with Shantung silk the crimson of venous blood. The ceiling was a domed riot of plaster curlicues set off by yards of crown molding. Fruitwood stands hosted Chinese horses and camels and bewildered-looking deities, all glazed in the same green and gold. Gilded cases of glass and porcelain and silver boasted of exuberant acquisition. Enough space for three large seating areas and a like number of Persian rugs. Damask couches, tapestry chairs, a few leather pieces thrown in for variety, inlaid tables strategically placed (p. 221).

...not to mention paragraphs upon paragraphs describing Robin and Alex's new dog, Blanche.

The contrast is jarring. Nothing (of import) is fleshed out here. At the very least, one would expect some character development from the protagonist, but not this time around. Back in the day, you could always count on Delaware channel surfing before determining that all TV is trash and picking up a mystery novel only to set it down an hour later after surmising that it, like everything else in the genre, is pure dreck (har!). Here? Nada.

3. There's No Real Mystery in Obsession. Like, literally. The villain is identified roughly halfway through the book and is caught/killed in the next to last chapter. Aside from one or two anecdotes about him relayed to us by secondary characters (see point #1), the bad guy never speaks, which is a questionable writing technique to say the least.

4. Too Much Exposition "Concealed" as Dialogue. The Delaware books are always first person narratives from the doc's perspective. And, of course, a rigid adherence to that format means that the only way Alex can find out anything is if he's actually there when it happens (or it's relayed to him after the fact.) This leads to Alex riding along with Milo rather more than you'd expect an LAPD psychological consultant to do. For the most part, this is tolerable, as Milo and Alex's banter is entertaining enough. What is less forgivable is having Alex sit it on numerous police meetings at the station, with various cops relaying salient background details on the suspects to Dr. D (and, by extension, us). Back in the day, this struck me as perfectly normal (why wouldn't a heralded child psychologist participate actively in the grizzly murder investigations of troubled adults? Sometimes, he even brings snacks.), but now it strikes me as very artificial, if, I'll begrudge, somewhat unavoidable.

5. The Price of Modernity. The older Kellerman novels (including his best stuff: When the Bough Breaks, Blood Test, Over the Edge, and Silent Partner) were always good for a riveting investigative reporting scene. Alex would be stymied, only to have a seemingly trivial detail jog his memory (House is probably the best current example--or "culprit," depending on your outlook--of this), whereupon he would tear off to the local library and plow through years and years of the Los Angeles Times on microfilm before invariably stumbling upon something that was critical to the case. (This was made especially awesome--and I assure you I'm actually being genuine here--because Delaware, in what was invariably the book's best scene, would then rapidly make connections/deductions based on this new info, leading up to a big reveal...except the reveal was always framed as "I realized that I needed to speak to Milo immediately," and this conversation was always done off-stage--so to speak--thus keeping the audience in the dark for another few chapters, something that I always found strangely thrilling.) Now, if Alex has a hunch, he just googles it and sifts through the results, which is decidedly less riveting. Milo will often remark that the computers at the LAPD office are prehistoric (again: another contrivance), so Alex always ends up doing a fair bit of the legwork on this own, but there's something about the immediacy of the process now that is utterly underwhelming.

6. The DJ Thing. The bad guy, when he's not killing people (or doing some freaky masturbating thing), works as a DJ at local clubs, often presenting his own mixes of popular songs in the process. Now, while spinning at shows might seem a perfectly respectable pursuit to you and I, in the Kellerman universe, it's treated as just slightly better than professional pedophile. Here's a smattering of references (after the third or so reference, I started to keep track) to the DJ character (and, remember, this is before he's revealed to be a cold-blooded killer):

p. 138: "Your basic techno-thievery."
p. 139: part of "the usual cabal of digital scumbag thieves."
p. 140: "Music cheat."
p. 196: Fortuno said: "how's this: the individual under question is a no-talent punk kid who purloins other people's songs and cobbles them together in what the popular parlance terms 'mixes.'"
p. 199: "I do not approve of thievery. However..." Throat clear. "...in the course of my profession, I am forced to deal with individuals of dubious morality."

Now, I find Moby to be as pretentious as the next person, but this blows my mind. Did Kellerman's wife (semi-famous and, from what I gather, semi-talented author Faye Kellerman) nail a DJ or something? Or is Kellerman (currently 58) simply crotchety beyond his years? Sadly, this is probably the book's only real mystery...

Sadder still, this series appears to be my reader crack, and when the next Kellerman novel hits the shelves in '08 (only once since 1992 has he failed to release a book in a given year), I'll no doubt check it out.

"He now looked not simply like the ruins of his youth, but like the ruins of those ruins..."

The Yiddish Policeman's Union (2007) by Michael Chabon

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union tells the story of Meyer Landsman, a once-promising detective who is, at the moment, drowning in a sea of his own raging alcoholism. With the help of his more attentive partner (his half-cousin Berko), Landsman investigates the mysterious death of a former chess prodigy/messiah figure/current heroin addict. He is also dealing with the return of his estranged wife, Bina, who is now heading up the Homicide Division and serving as Landsman's de facto boss.

But this is only part of the tale. The other lead character is, interestingly, the setting, which looms over and colors everything in the book. In Chabon’s alternative universe, the year is still 2007, but the world is very different. The bulk of the action takes place in Sitka, Alaska, the adopted Jewish homeland that emerges in the wake of the alluded-to-but-never-explicitly-discussed collapse of the Jewish State of Israel in 1948. Sitka, a thriving metropolis of some three million people, is, much to everyone’s consternation, about to revert to U.S. rule, leaving the vast majority of American Jews in a state of limbo.

Chabon, who many (myself included!) fell in love with after the incomparable The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (the Seth Cohen quote—mainly, he and Ryan can't be friends if Ryan doesn't like K and C—still applies) is such a brilliantly evocative writer that trying to review his work is slightly embarrassing, to the point where it’s pretty much impossible to avoid quoting him at length. As such…

On Landsman’s childhood hatred of chess and his complicated relationship with his father: But in the service of his own small misery, Landsman could be stubborn, too. Satisfied, burning with shame, he would watch unfold the grim destiny that he had been unable to foresee. And Landsman’s father would demolish him, flay him, vivisect him, gazing at his son all the while from behind the sagging porch of his face (p. 33).

On friendship: “You bet. Mazel tov, Berko.”
Landsman’s congratulations are so ironic that they are heartfelt, and they are so heartfelt that they can only come off as insincere, and he and his partner sit there for a while, not going anywhere, listening to them congeal (p. 49).

On longing: She reaches into the breast pocket of her suit jacket and takes out a pair of half-glasses that Landsman has never seen before. She is getting old, and he is getting old, right on schedule, and yet as time ruins them they are not, strangely enough, married to each other (p. 59).

And again: Landsman watches her walk across the dining area to the doors of the Polar-Shtern Kafeteria. He bets himself a dollar that she won’t look back at him before she puts up her hood and steps out in the snow. But he’s a charitable man, and it was a sucker bet, so he never bothers collect (p. 160).

Now, Kavalier and Clay this ain’t (although given how good K and C is—and, Shuk, I refuse to argue about this, so let’s just move on—this isn’t saying a whole lot), but his eye for detail and his ability to take the mundane and turn it on its head remains uncanny.

The book is also laugh out loud funny in places, but, on account of my less than thorough note-taking this time around, you're just going to have to take my word for it, dammit.

If forced (you are forcing me, right??), I could probably be just a little bit critical. The plot, especially near the end, is faintly ridiculous (and that's being generous). Additionally, the details on WW2 in the Chabonverse are considerably sketchier than I'd prefer. For instance, the Wikipedia page on the book is much more illuminating than the book itself on this front, to the point where I'm fairly certain the contributors are reading in stuff that wasn't actually present in the text. Landsman's alcoholism, which sounds as if it's crippling at the start of the book, becomes little more than an affectation at the end. Oh, sure, there's an awkward scene early on where he opts for a beer for breakfast, but, for the most part, he keeps his problem in check--like, there isn't even a whiff of danger on this front beyond page 150--which comes off as Chabon playing it safe. Now, this is Chabon's choice to make (the characters, after all, are his) and maybe he simply wasn't interested in pursuing that angle any more than he did, but then why introduce it in the first place? I'm not sure. Finally, there's a third act revelation about his sister which should really shock and anger Landsman, yet he completely brushes it off like it's no big deal. Truth be told, I didn't even pick up on this until my dad mentioned it to me (he ripped through it in four days after I finished it), but he's completely right: it is a tad askew. It's almost as if Chabon didn't want to have deal with the poignancy of the moment, set it aside, and never got back to it.

When pitchforkmedia.com isn’t falling all over itself being wildly arrogant and, in the process, sending me racing to the dictionary in an effort to decipher its latest review, it has rare moments of clarity, even beauty. One such moment occurs near the end of their review of Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker (astoundingly, this review is no longer available on their site), when the reviewer persuasively argues that the album is “the soundtrack for the last fifteen minutes of every relationship ever.” (I know people have heard me use this line before, but, dammit, it's great, so I'm sticking with it.) Well…if Heartbreaker were a book, it would be The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (and the disc should be the required accompaniment for all TYPU readers.)

Though, unsurprisingly, Landsman and Bina eventually reconcile—as they were inexorably bound to when the book began—The Yiddish Policeman’s Union is very much rooted in this Adamsesque milieu of love and loss (of a wife, of an unborn child, of boundless optimism, of talent, of a homeland that they barely had a chance to miss, and of another homeland that was really never theirs to begin with). And, as far as I’m concerned, no happy ending can ruin this.

In Five Years, We'll All Either Be Learning It In School...or Be Dead By Its Hand

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (2005) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

This book was a huge hit back in '05 (#2 on The New York Times bestseller's list), but I'm fairly lazy, so I didn't get around to reading it until I stole it from my friend Andrew up at his parents' cottage and plowed through it in a day over the August long weekend (thanks, buddy!). At its core, Freakonomics, is a loose amalgam of random, intriguing theories put together by the "it" economist of right-the-hell-now, Steven Levitt.

So what does Freakonomics teach us? Glad you asked! Just a sampling: how to catch high school teachers that change their students' answers on standardized tests to earn their performance bonus (look for a strategically improbable string of correct answers later in the test, when kids are rather unlikely to be that accurate); how sumo wrestlers collude (those that are hovering around .500 going into their final bout will barter--successfully--for a win against a stronger opponent in exchange for dumping the next encounter between the two); how a regular joe helped fatally (not for him) undermine the KKK in the 40s (somewhat awesomely: this involves Superman); and the book answers the question of whether or not real estate agents will knowingly sell your house for less than it's worth in order to quickly receive their commission cheque (hint: yes!). Elsewhere, Levitt seeks--with a varying degree of success--to debunk the notion that money plays a major role in elections and provocatively asserts that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision is the major (not to mention: well-concealed) reason for the massive drop in the American crime rate, post-1990. More on this last one in a sec.

The weakest section by far is the one on election spending. Levitt is quick to make the point that deep pockets do not guarantee a November win--using Steve Forbes and Ross Perot as examples--something, as near as I can tell, that no one has ever argued. Two sharper/less retarded observations might be:

1. Perot and Forbes' failures had less do with money being overrated than with the vagaries of the two-party sytem being virtually impossible to overcome. (Also, Perot being batshit crazy likely played a role.)
2. Having money may not guarantee you a victory, but not having it all but assures your defeat (see: McCain, John...or any of the '08 Dems not named 'Clinton,' 'Obama,' or 'Edwards.')

Even from my pro-choice vantage point, there is something considerably icky (for want of a better term) about the more abortions = less crime formulation. So the theory goes:

1. Abortions reduce the number of unwanted children born into this world.
2. Unwanted children, when they turn 16, tend to commit more crimes, on average, than other children.
3. Abortions became legal in 1973.
4. The national crime rate, in response to legalized abortion reducing the number of unwanted kids, began to drop in 1990.

And...that's about all there is to it. Admittedly, if you don't buy point #2 (and, I'll confess, I missed that memo altogether), you're not going to like the theory. Now, I can think of a few things wrong with the argument--specifically, a confluence of minor events (a tipping point, as it were), unconvincingly dismissed by the author, seems a more likely answer--but I will acknowledge that it takes huge balls to make it in the first place.

All told, it's a fun and informative read (If you're unable to become the pretentious and pedantic ass at the cocktail party after racing through this book, I would suggest that you get out of the pretentious ass business), but there are a couple of nagging concerns...

The reality is--aside from the fact that the topics piqued Levitt's interest--there is precious little connecting the hierarchy of a crack empire to corrupt sumo wrestling, and even less of a link between the socioeconomic patterns of naming children and outing the Klan. To their credit, the authors do, indeed, go out of there way to point out that their book has no overarching theme. However, this reminds me very much of the Puff Daddy defense from years back. If I may summarize: "It's ok that I shamelessly sample other tracks in my songs because I'm admitting to you, right now, that I shamelessly sample." Well, ok, but it doesn't change the fact that you're still a shameless sampler. Few wannabe authors, I imagine, are trotting out the "my novel, read as a whole, is completely incomprehensible" argument (at least not successfully), so why should this fly here? (Good Lord, did I just reference P. Diddy as a hip-hop mogul? Science Dammit!) As Gregg Easterbrook (and who am I to quibble with TMQ?) observes in his own review of the book: "academic careers may not need unifying themes; books do."

There's also a tendency to set up straw men, such as the authors starting out with the premise that everyone believes drug dealers to be incredibly wealthy and then telling us that, no, in fact, most make less than the average burger jockey at McDonald's, a revelation startling to anyone who has never seen, heard of, discussed, or read about The Wire.

Another occurs when Levitt hypothesizes that maybe, just maybe, the name you're given at birth plays a role in your future earnings and then quickly follows this up with stats that prove just that. While it's fun to analyze the attached appendix (names from the California birth registry over three decades cross-referenced by the average number of years of schooling for the name-giver) is this (a) really worthy of an economist's time or (b) even remotely surprising? No on both counts, I think.

Finally, the subheading describes Levitt as a "rogue economist," and a blurb on the back adds--hilariously--"if Indiana Jones were an economist, he would be Stephen Levitt," to which I must ask: the fuck?? I actually don't even know what that means...would he still be fighting the Nazis? What's even funnier is that, allegedly, in its original run, each chapter began with a brief quote from Dubner (the co-author/possible ghostwriter according to some sources) fawning over Levitt. (Levitt is the "master of the simple, clever solution"; is "genial...and unflappable"; and is a "tender and attentive lover." Somewhat embarassingly, only one of those quotes is fabricated.)

This book, I'm willing to speculate, looks very much like what Levitt's brain would look like if you were able to walk around in it--cluttered, full of bizarre tidbits, wickedly funny at times, somewhat infuriating in other places. Whether that's a good thing or not is debatable.

This, too, began to seem familiar...

Tell No One tells the story of Dr. David Beck who, eight years ago, tragically lost his wife when she was kidnapped and later murdered. Or did he? (Hint: no.) We're barely into chapter two when David receives a cryptic e-mail suggesting that rumors of his wife's demise were greatly exaggerated. And we're off. Or something...This is probably why I haven't been hired to write exhilarating jacket blurbs.

Anyway, TNO focuses of Beck's attempts to (not necessarily in the following order): find out the truth about his wife, clear his name, and not get killed. Exciting--I suppose--in theory, but considerably less so in execution. It's taken me three subpar mystery/thrillers in rapid succession to get here, but I think I've figured "The Coben Formula":

• An innocent (typically: an ordinary joe) with a secretive and/or tragic past (or both!).
• A heavy (in this case: an angry billionaire--yes, just like in Karate Kid 3--but often a crooked cop...or detective..or FBI agent) who will (gasp) stop at nothing to accomplish his nefarious goal.
• A crazy goon (here: a North Korean by the name of Eric Wu--I'm sad to report that he never accuses the hero of "breaking his balls"--whose fists are actual lethal weapons) in the heavy's employ. In Promise Me, there were actually two goons who worked together, one of whom enjoyed biting his victims to death. Whatever.
• Ridiculously rapid escalation, invariably stemming from the lead character being accused (falsely, I feel obligated to add, though you've probably figured that out) of some high crime or another. Apparently, in Cobenland, if you're the last person seen with a now-missing person, you've obviously brutally murdered her (the police logic being, from what I gather, if he didn't kill her, why has no one else seen her alive? Aha! Now, let's go question this guy and refuse to believe his perfectly acceptable alibi and generally be really shitty to him...). In Trust No One, Dr. David Beck's wife goes from "being presumed dead for eight years at the hand of a deranged serial killer" to "presumed murdered by her adoring husband" to "not being presumed dead at all" in the span of, say, 80 pages (or: less than a day in the actual book). Paralleling that, Beck goes from "grieving widow" to "odds-on cold-blooded killer" to "well, he must be hiding something!" in the same span. Good times.
• A strong female character (typically: stunning) who loves and respects the hero (as a friend!) and serves as a trusted confidant throughout, even though the hero can trust no one. Strictly speaking, I have no problems with this aspect, though it's fairly trite.
• A twist that you'll never see coming. Literally. Coben favors the "I'm going to relinquish no hints at all until the actual reveal, so as to dazzle the reader with my twist" (think The Village or--and it actually pains me to reference this--Vanilla Sky). I won't give anything away but, seriously, I defy anyone to point to a single clue in the preceding 369 pages that would lead us to the "shocking" moment on page 370.
• A nasty habit of pandering to his readers. This is particularly evident in Tell No One. Specifically, I'm thinking of how the main character casually mentions that Homer Simpson's voice notifies him when he's received a new e-mail. Whereupon Coben, ever so helpfully, adds "I mean Homer Simpson as in The Simpsons character." Ohhhh! That Homer Simpson! I thought he meant the Jeffrey Chaucer impersonator!! Everything's so much clearer now! Later on, Coben has Goon #2 explain to Goon #1 (Eric Wu) how, exactly, a message board works, like we're fucking retarded. You know what? I get that there's a 63 year old woman reading TNO that wouldn't understand either reference (I guess), but, really, does that really take away from the book to the point where you need to spell it out for them? Don't you think they could piece it together on their own? Or would they simply slam the book down in disgust? ("Mes. Sage. Board? Whaaaat? Is this guy from the future?? Where's my book of Jumbles?")

Now, to the untrained eye, it may seem as though I have peculiar obsession with Harlan Coben --as Carrie, my lovely fiancee, has asked me on numerous occasions, "why are you reading his books if you clearly dislike them?" Honestly, baby? I have no idea. In part, I think it's because he's hugely (and, I shall cattily add, inexplicably) popular at the moment (his books routinely debut in the Top 5) and in part because The Atlantic Monthly (my favorite magazine that doesn't have "Sports" or "Illustrated" in the title) deemed him worthy of a lengthy profile last month. Or it could simply be the fact that he went to Amherst with David Foster Wallace, my favorite writer ever. At any rate, clearly I'm not reading his stuff because I like him. In fact, I think I hate him a little bit. Why?

Jealousy

Jealousy

Jealousy (fine! A little bit...)

Because he's a shitty writer. (Better!)

Call it The "Bobby" Principle. (God, what an awful movie.) Anytime I watch or read something that is supposed to be good and my first thought is "well, hell, I could write something better than this!"--that is usually a pretty solid indication that what I'm witnessing is lousy; because, let's be honest, I'm just not that creative (see: the previous 900 or so words). With Coben, I get this feeling on every single fucking page. Say what you want about Dan Brown (I'll start: he's terrible. Any book that does not prominently feature Encyclopedia Brown should contain significantly more pages than chapters--James Patterson, I'm also looking at you), but at least the idea behind The Da Vinci Code (cribbed though it may have been) was clever. One cannot make a similar claim with Coben. And with that, I wash my hands of him. That's right, an unprecedented (I assume) Harlan Coben moratorium.

[Dusts off hands triumphantly]

Unless I change my mind at a later date...which I almost surely will. After all, hating stuff sure is fun. But, until then: ah, sweet principled stands.

"Whatever’s Just Slightly Worse Than Useless..."

OK, so, technically, this is simply a re-posting of my Facebook review of the book, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling. Stay tuned for another Coben review (Tell No One, which--impossibly--I liked even less than this one).

Book Review: Promise Me by Harlan Coben (2006)

Read: last week

This Harlan Coben guy...boy, I don't know...

Strike One: really, really weak dialogue that HC is trying (I'm assuming) to pass off as clever. This includes Myron (repeatedly) mocking antagonists by sarcastically repeating their rather feeble retorts and adding "ho ho...that really is hilarious. Honestly, how do you come up with that?"; Myron's sidekick Win (the only truly interesting character in the book) answering the phone--every single fucking time...and it probably happens 20 times, i.e. roughly 19 times more than necessary--with the exact same greeting: "Articulate"; and Myron using--non-ironically--"we can do this the easy way or the hard way" in a conversation.

Strike Two: limp attempts at humour that stick out like a sore thumb and invariably fall flat. This includes Myron referencing an old (admittedly funny) Seinfeld stand-up bit about how, if you're buying a detergent solely on the basis of its ability to get blood out of clothes, you have more problems than cleanliness that is so awkwardly introduced it actually made me cringe at the page; as well as a joke about a book editor, a desert island, "tweaking," a glass of orange juice, and human urine that I'm positive Coben made up for the book (even though he introduces it as an old joke) and isn't funny anyway. Just stop.

Strike Three (SPOILERISH BUT NOT REALLY): OK...here's the thing. If you're writing a mystery novel, you have to walk a fine line between not giving away the villain too early (which is boring/predictable) and not giving the reader any hints at all and then simply revealing the villain right at the end (which is frustrating/unsatisfying). A good mystery writer will do this by dropping subtle clues along the way (think: The Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects) that, after you've completed the book (or film) and you look back, it takes on a whole new meaning. Coben...does not do this, choosing instead the cheap reveal at the end (this has happened in both Coben books I've read). Now, some might point to this as a sign that Coben is, in fact, very good at creating twists--that is, setting up a reader for one ending and then skillfully veering off in a different direction. But...that's only true if the twist develops organically, which I really don't think it does here. It's a cheap thrill and, instead of resonating, it just left me feeling cold.

And yet, somehow, I'm compelled to read more of his stuff. I'm going to be the guy that's read all of his books who, when asked about him as a writer, shrugs his shoulders and says: "meh...he's ok." I can feel it. And I'll be right.