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Sometimes the ugliest truth is better than the prettiest of lies… From the SUNDAY TIMES bestselling writer of SIX YEARS.

A beautiful woman walking into Myron Bolitar’s office asking for help must have been a dream come true. Only this woman, Suzze T, is in tears – and eight months pregnant…

Suzze’s rock star husband has disappeared, and she fears the rumours questioning her baby’s paternity have driven him away. For Myron, questions of fatherhood couldn’t hit closer to home. His own father is clinging precariously to life, and the brother who abandoned the family years ago has resurfaced – with danger following close in the back of. Myron is soon forced to confront deep secrets in Suzze’s past, his family’s mortality – and his own…

It was only matter of time before Facebook and other electronic social media found their way into thrillers – as they do with Live Wire. For some years, Harlan Coben has been situated firmly at the top of the tree in the crime and thriller stakes, and each new outing consolidates his already enviable reputation. So far, there have been no missteps (not something every bestselling crime author can claim), and Live Wire is another example of his command writing. Coben’s engaging protagonist Myron Bolivar is back in the thick of things again in this one. But the writer has something special up his sleeve here for his beleaguered hero.

A Facebook posting sets out destructive claims about who the father of a child yet to be born. On the receiving end of the questionable revelations are ex-tennis champion Suzze T and her retired rock star partner Lex. Lex deserts his pregnant lover, and the distressed Suzze calls on private eye-cum-sports agent Myron Bolitar, hoping he can retrieve her relationship. More is, in truth, at stake – including, it kind of feels, the life of the errant Lex. And Myron’s private life is in its customary jumbled state. He runs into his sister-in-law Kitty (married to a brother who has broken off contact with Myron) and the couple’s teenage son Micky. The boy rages at Myron, who he considers responsible for his parents’ estrangement. So Myron has multiple problems: sorting out the chaos caused by the unpleasant Facebook posting, saving the life of Lex and curing his own headaches over his warring relatives. From this busy premise, Live Wire goes off at a surprising tangent, with Myron even confronting an existential question: his own shifting identity.

Coben’s dialogue here fizzles like the best vintage crime fiction, and Myron remains one of the crucial strongest characters in the genre. As at all times, the sense of place is crucial with the writer: the settings here have a pungency that leaps off the page. But it’s the plotting that in point of fact grabs the interest – along side what we learn about Myron, which changes the face of this entertaining sequence of books decisively – and permanently. —Barry Forshaw

Sometimes the ugliest truth is better than the prettiest of lies… From the SUNDAY TIMES bestselling writer of SIX YEARS.

A beautiful woman walking into Myron Bolitar’s office asking for help must have been a dream come true. Only this woman, Suzze T, is in tears – and eight months pregnant…

Suzze’s rock star husband has disappeared, and she fears the rumours questioning her baby’s paternity have driven him away. For Myron, questions of fatherhood couldn’t hit closer to home. His own father is clinging precariously to life, and the brother who abandoned the family years ago has resurfaced – with danger following close in the back of. Myron is soon forced to confront deep secrets in Suzze’s past, his family’s mortality – and his own…