Critical Mick

Reviews Free of Rules.

Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

Hold Tight
by Harlan Coben
Signet, 2009

Hardball Cons Tonight, Eh?

I recall flying through the two earlier Coben titles that I read, really enjoying them. Hold Tight dropped the plot. The characters just too plain, too consumerist, too prescription pill reliant to get excited about. Even the philosophically-versed villain, who quizzes a victim on lyrics from The Sound of Music before moving in for the kill, seems contrived and colorless.

Potted plot: Mike Baye (a New Jersey doctor who remains a bit of a hard man, despite his suburban surroundings) and his wife Tia (a MILFy back-to-work lawyer) begin spying on uncommunicative teenaged son Adam's computer after his friend Spencer Hill's suicide. An intercepted email that Adam is invited to a beerfest sends the elder Bayes into a tizzy. Adam disappears and they fear he is in danger. Meanwhile, the kid next door needs a life-saving transplant: very fortunate that Dr. Baye is one of the top men at swapping out spare parts. Not far away, a pair of sadists are seeing what they can extract (for the most part, comfortably off-camera) from a woman they have dressed up like a hooker. The county's chief cop shortly thereafter locks horns with one of her fat, lazy detectives. Betsy Hill seeks the truth about her son's "suicide." Mike Baye's obligatory sidekick cracks a few jokes. There's also a slightly hairy pre-teen whose life has been ruined by her fifth-grade teacher. Good thing she knows where Daddy keeps his gun! This array of players felt more "what will a nice wide target demographic find appealing?" rather than insightful, inspired or real.

"A thriller for the Google era," Hold Tight is intended to impress readers with what marvels of information are available to the concerned parent, kidnapper or supernaturally clever copper of today (should they have invested in a Blackberry, cell phone, or certain software package). Every character checks their email constantly, GPS is treated as a miracle and big clues are found on myspace.com. Anyone who works with computers will find these wonders pretty ho-hum, and must every single plot point arise from technology? It's like building a mystery where, without exception, the clues involve the spectacular, distinct varieties of fromage available from the cheesemonger in Superquinn. Sure, the info will be tasty, educational and impressive to Average Joes who have never been arsed to venture beyond cheddar. Everything that he'll be introduced to, though, has been around a long time- and no matter how tightly a notion is held, it's unlikely that any real life crime will ever revolve entirely around cheese or the Internet.

For the remainder of this review, allow me to out-Harlan Coben Harlan Coben. Using technology available today, it is possible for Internet surfers to input instructions into automated programs that analyze and rearrange material- revealing surprising truths about its composition! Hold tight and prepare to gasp at the shockers that can be found in:

Automated Anagrams for Harlan Coben's Hold Tight

Harlan Coben rearranged = A Channel Bro

Critical Mick says: Hold Tight made me throw up my hands. The information on the blackmarket for prescription pharmaceuticals was interesting, but I really do hope that Hold Tight is a bald hornet's glitch, hon.

critical mick rearranged = Climactic Irk

Franklin W. Dixon, author of the Hardy Boys books that my Dad used to get me hooked on mysteries, age 8, did not exist. Harlan Coben, on the opposite end of reality's seasaw, does. Nora Roberts I've got to question. Can any one person write that many bestsellers, in that many different genres, that fast? Rearrange the letters: "R Robot Earns". Boy, it sure does!

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2009 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

Irate, huh? Managed to piss off another one? Direct your hatemail to mick @ mickhalpin dot com.

This Page Was Last Updated On 24 February, 2009.