The stench of testosterone emanating from the pages of this book made me want to open a window to get some fresh air while I was reading it. Or maybe go outside and take a walk in the sunshine instead of reading it.This is the second in Harlan Coben's sports agent/detective Myron Bolitar series. I read the first one for my Mystery Book Club last year and I liked it well enough to give the second one a try. I have two more in this series on my Kindle but I don't think I'll be turning to them anytime soon.Myron Bolitar is portrayed as the tough but tender agent. He represents young athletes and protects them from the vultures who are just waiting to take advantage of them. He is, of course, irresistible to women and his world is peopled with beautiful women, but the most beautiful and desirable one of all is his and his alone. He plays in some very rough leagues and he's able to defend himself physically, but he doesn't like to carry a gun. That's okay though because he has a wing man looking out for him.That wing man, Win, is fabulously wealthy and deceptively slight in stature, but he is an implacable killer who is able to snuff out the lives of anyone who is a threat to Myron with ease and then dispose of the bodies where they will never be found. And so he is never exposed, never called to account for any of his kills. His body count in this book, if my math is right, is four.The focus of the action this time is on tennis. Myron is representing the latest wunderkind who looks like he might win the U.S. Open. He's a young African-American, a street kid with a nebulous background who somehow managed to pick up the skills needed to be not just a tennis pro but a champion.While he is playing a match at the Open, another former wunderkind, a young woman, is shot to death in another part of the sports complex. The investigation uncovers the fact that she had called the current wunderkind a couple of times in the days before her death. He claims he didn't know her and didn't speak to her.This young woman, it turns out, was no stranger to murder. Six years before, her boyfriend, the son of a powerful U.S. senator, had been murdered at a swanky tennis club, allegedly by a knife-wielding young African-American intruder. The intruder had a companion, another young African-American man. The police arrived on the scene and one of the intruders was shot and killed. The other one escaped and was never found. So, we have one rich white kid and one poor black kid dead. Surprisingly, the whole thing is almost immediately hushed up. But the young female tennis player had seen the two black kids up close.It all becomes a tangled web in which no one is telling the truth and when the young woman is killed six years later at the Open, Myron, who was just about to ink a deal to represent her, becomes involved. He is determined to find out what happened, who killed her, and to do so he has to follow the trail all the way back to that earlier murder and solve it, too. Because, you see, the police who investigated both murders are utterly hopeless buffoons. Only Myron and Win have the brains and the balls to solve these crimes.One passage from the book will sum up Myron's thought processes about the violence which permeates this tale:Myron had indeed seen plenty of violence, but the sight of blood still made him queasy once the danger passed. He didn't like violence, no matter what he'd told Jessica before. He was good at it, no denying that, but he did not like it. Yes, violence was the closest modern man came to his true primitive self, the closest he came to the intended state of nature, to the Lockean ideal, if you will. And yes, violence was the ultimate test of man, a test of both physical strength and animalistic cunning. Man had - in theory anyway - evolved for a reason. In the final analysis, violence was indeed a rush. But so was skydiving without a parachute.See? We get both his tender side, i.e. he doesn't like violence and the sight of blood makes him queasy, and his tough, manly side, i.e. "violence was indeed a rush." But this story is nowhere near that ambivalent. It glories in the violence and wallows in the blood and gore. Excuse me while I go open that window.
Coben's second Myron Bolitar adventure brings readers to the U.S. Open (tennis) Tournament. Myron currently has a new athlete, Duane Richwood, on his roster who is a former boy from the streets turned wunderkind. Things take a horrible turn when a young woman is gunned down at the tournament, and it turns out that she used to be one of the leading ladies in the sport.Myron finds himself pulled into trying to figure out who killed her as well as possible ties her death my have to the death of her fiance (interestingly enough for James Patterson fans, Alexander Cross) 6 years earlier at a tennis club. Things start to really get interesting ash learns more and more about the vicitims' pasts and how so much of everything seems like it might have been swept under the rug. Myron just wants justice, but he is slowly finding himself deeper and deeper into a bizarre situation, particularly as the Ache brothers, the local crime family, are involved.This was another nice addition to the series. The more I read of the books, the more they remind me of the John Feinstein mysteries for middle schoolers. These are definitely for adults, though. I have been enjoying the "just a touch" of sports to provide atmosphere and a setting for the mysteries. I will definitely be looking forward to the next book in the series.
What do You think about Drop Shot (1996)?
Bir Myron-Win komedisi daha. Polisiye bir roman aslında ama konu ne olursa olsun, sırf bu iki karakter arasındaki diyaloglar için bile okunur. Harlan Coben'in diğer kitapları gibi bu da aslında son derece zekice kurgulanmıştı. Alakasız gibi görünen türlü ayrıntılardan etkileyici bir roman oluşturmuş, gayet güzel işlemiş ve finali güzel bağlamış. Okuyucuya yeterli dozda adrenalin veren ama bunu yaparken okuyucuya kahkaha attırabilen bir kitaptı. Zaten hayrandım yazara, bu kitapla daha da kuvvetlendi.
—İlkim
Drop shot by Harlan Coben.Let me begin by stating that I like (very much) the lead character, Myron Bolitar. Myron is at the U.S. Open as an observer, a fan and a sports agent. One of the tennis stars of yesterday has been murdered outside the stadium. Myron begins his own investigation only to discover that another unsolved murder took place 6 years prior to this murder. Is there a connection? I was so pleasantly surprised to find that this author is capable of entertaining on yet another level. Myron has such a fun sense of humor to his thinking even when in the most dire circumstances that I could not help but laugh out loud. If you've read Coben before...give this book and the Myron Bolitar series try. It's a whole new ballgame.
—Ellen
This was a pretty good story but I don't think I'd want to read any more of the series. Myron is alright and I can accept someone who has studied Tai Kwan do, but Windsor Horne Lockwood III I do not want to meet. The totally cold, super skilled ninja-type capable of any brutality and yet devastatingly handsome and rich so he can afford to go haring off into the shrubbery is not plausible. I wish I could say that other characters were not plausible but the coach, the parents, the product reps are probably quite possible. Oh - and the supremely gorgeous women who move like panthers or dancers, I can sure do without them. I didn't care for the 4'10" psychiatrist at the other end of the scale but at least Coben didn't make a cartoon of her. There are several scenes of extreme violence and threatened violence and, of course, several scenes either leading into or out of extreme sex. Why did I give it three stars? The description of the action at the US Open, the interaction of the characters were all interest grabbing and the concerns of the young players were typical of pro sports so rather sad but gripping.This is apparently a well known author in the US but I guess I'm behind because I've never heard of him.
—Helen
