Normally I’d start a review with a brief plot summary. I know opinions are divided on this, but personally I appreciate not having to go to another website to look up the plot when someone raves about a book. But I honestly don’t remember much about this book. Something with two stolen paintings, a dead hermit, and a rich guy.
Because Winford Something III would very much like you to know that he is rich. Very rich. Private jet rich. Helicopter rich. He can’t help it. It’s just the facts of life.
I think if it had just been the facts of life, that he probably wouldn’t be harping on about it, but whatever. The point is that his money allows him to do things, like beat up rapists (a bit of a side quest for him) without getting arrested because “rich people don’t get arrested.”
One of the main mistakes this novel has (aside from the convoluted plot) is that we see the story through Win’s eyes. Win is (apparently) already a side character in some of the Bolitar novels, but I haven’t read those, so this was my first time meeting him. The idea of a filthy rich guy fighting crime is hardly original (though in all fairness, he’s less ludicrous than Batman) but it could’ve been interesting. Instead, we get a guy who brags that he never brags about how rich he is. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge and not a particularly interesting one.
Aside from that, the plot is overwrought and needlessly confusing and most of the characters are pretty flat. Coben isn’t a bad writer in and of itself, so I was somewhat baffled by how bad this was. I’ll give him another go (this was my second book of his) but I’ll give Win a miss.