It seems to be a growing trend that established authors of adult thrillers have a go at writing for young adults. Harlan Coben has recently joined this trend and created Mickey Bolitar, nephew to his long established character Myron Bolitar. That’s fine as far as it goes, but the question is whether Coben can write convincingly for teens or is he just dumbing down and sanitising his adult writing in order to take advantage of the growing YA market.
Mickey is a young man with problems. He witnessed his father’s death in a car crash and his mother’s serious drug habit has her in rehab for the foreseeable future. Forced to live with his Uncle Myron, Mickey faces life in a new school with new friends … and new enemies. Then one day his girlfriend disappears. The strange woman living in the old house seems to be telling him to ‘Save Ashley’. The question is how?
On the surface this is a reasonable thriller. Certainly there are good baddies. And Mickey’s support team are an appropriate bunch of misfits with courage. The actual plot and reveal are reasonable, perhaps even logical. But somehow I felt that Coben was simply dumbing down his normal thriller writing. The book didn’t capture my imagination, or even my interest. And as far as the promised twists and turns, I saw them coming a mile off. This book appeared to me to be a simplification and sanitised crime novel. And as such, it sells kids short.
Kids today don’t need the ‘squeaky clean’ hero, or the telegraphed plot twists. In this first effort, I believe Coben has sold himself and young readers short.
