Monday, October 29, 2018

Book of the Month: Darkest Fear



A surprise visit from an ex-girlfriend is unsettling enough. But Emily Downing’s news brings Myron to his knees. Her son Jeremy is dying and needs a bone marrow transplant from a donor who has vanished without a trace. Then comes the real shocker: Jeremy is Myron’s son, conceived the night before Emily’s wedding to another man. Myron is determined to help him. But finding the missing donor means cracking open a dark mystery that involves a broken family, a brutal kidnapping spree, and the FBI. And as doubts emerge about Jeremy’s true paternity, a child vanishes, igniting a chain reaction of heartbreaking truth and chilling revelation.

My Rating: ***** 


Harlan Coben is one of my favorite authors, and I especially enjoy his Myron Bolitar series. One thing I will note about this series is that I've read it out of order, and there are still a few books in it that I haven't tracked down to read yet. The Myron Bolitar books actually work as standalone stories. There are progressions with the characters and their lives throughout the series, but a new reader could pick up a book that takes place in the middle of the series and understand what's going on without much trouble.

Darkest Fear is book seven in this eleven book series, so it's sort of around the end of the middle of the series (at least of how it stands today). It's a thrilling mystery, filled with twists and turns that leave you trying to guess what will happen next.

As it is part of the series, Darkest Fear also features the typical Myron Bolitar characters. Myron himself, Win, Esperanza, etc. It also brings in other characters that have had roles to play in Myron's past or that are in some way connected with the big mystery at hand. It was interesting piecing together everyone's goals and motivations as the story progressed to see what role they had in the mystery.

As I said before, the Myron books can work as standalone stories, and Darkest Fear is no exception. The overall mystery is completely wrapped up by the end of the novel. There are no hanging threads (at least none that I could see) that would require the reader to find another book to get a complete resolution. Of course this is still part of a series, and if you want to see what happens next with Myron, you will have to pick up the next book to see what's going on in his life and what mystery he discovers next time around.

Overall, if you're looking for a mystery-thriller, I highly recommend reading Darkest Fear (and some of Harlan Coben's other works as well).

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