SIX YEARS
By Harlen Coben
Reviewed by Dennis Bianchi
Harlan Coben is the bestselling author of sixteen previous thriller-type novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers "Long Lost" and "Hold Tight." Winner of the Edgar Award, the Shamus Award, and the Anthony Award, the first author to win all three. He has, obviously, a talent for writing that appeals to the public, and not just the American public. He has been published in at least 40 languages. And yet, I was hesitant to become one of his readers. After prodding from my friend Kevin Conroy, I gave him a try awhile back and found him interesting. But after this novel, Six Years, I am a fan.
Jake Sanders, the well-educated protagonist of this novel, is the first-person voice that grabs and propels the reader on a great search for Natalie, the love of his life. Jake, a college professor, meets and falls dramatically in love and lust for Natalie Avery for a six-week period, only to be dumped by her. Then he is further shocked to learn she is marrying someone else. Natalie takes him aside at the wedding and makes him promise to never see her or her husband, Todd Sanderson, again, to not come near them. Jake takes his promises seriously, and not once in six years does he approach the couple, but he seems to have never gotten over Natalie. Then, while perusing the newsletter of the school where he teaches, he notices that Natalie's husband, who was an alumnus of the school, has died. He cannot resist attending the funeral in hopes of seeing Natalie again. As Mr. Coben writes the words for Jake, we get a hint at what is in store:
Part of the human condition is that we all think that we are uniquely complex while everyone else is somewhat simpler to read. That is not true, of course. We all have our own dreams and hopes and wants and lust and heartaches. We all have our own brand of crazy.
And now the mystery begins, as the widow of the deceased alumnus is most certainly not Natalie. And to make it even more convolutedly mysterious, the widow has been married to this fellow for a decade and they have two children. So where is Natalie? Why did she lie to Jake? Who are these people at the funeral?
Jake is determined to find Natalie, but it seems others are just as determined to make sure he doesn't. His investigation reveals that the deceased husband was murdered. As he digs deeper, the secrets of Natalie's family come into play; a father who abandoned her and her mother; contacts with organized crime characters: and a complex web of lies to cover it all.
By using only Jake's point of view, Mr. Coben has the reader unraveling the mystery at the same time and pace of Jake. We get the clues as Jake gets them; we get confused as Jake does. Mr. Coben is very clever and polished. He can also be very funny. Early in the book Jake tells us of a writing retreat he attended while pursuing his Ph. D. There is no doubt that this incident was prompted by a real-life experience of Mr. Coben.
Each writer had a bedroom in the main house and a shack or 'work cottage' in which to write.... (Lacking any luxuries such as the Internet, TV, phones or autos) my brain cells began to rust and corrode...I spent one entire afternoon watching a colony of ants carry a bread crumb across the 'writer cottage' floor. So enamored was I with this bit of entertainment I strategically placed more bread crumbs in various corners in order to create insect relay races... My fellow retreat scribes were all precious pseudo-intellectuals writing the next great American novel, The works were pretentious,tedious, self-involved crap written in a prose style one might best describe as ' Look at me! Please look at me!'... One guy named Lars was writing a six-hundred-page poem on Hitler's last days in the bunker, written from the viewpoint of Eva Braun's dog. His first reading consisted of ten minutes of barking... 'It sets the mood,' he explained, and he was correct if that mood was to punch him hard in the face.
I have decided I am now officially a Harlan Coben fan. He gets it.
