A client’s case of online harassment brings the chickens home to roost for agent Myron Bolitar and his whole family.
Retired tennis star Suzze T (née Trevantino) is so happy about her pregnancy that she can’t understand why one of her virtual friends would post “NOT HIS” on her Facebook page. She swears that the father really is her husband Lex Ryder, the Australian-born rocker who’s been the public face of the band HorsePower ever since a lurid scandal involving 16-year-old Alista Snow sent HorsePower front man Gabriel Wire into seclusion over a decade ago. Now Suzze wants Myron to unmask the false friend who questioned Lex’s paternity and bring her runaway husband, who didn’t take the rumor well at all, back home. It isn’t long before Myron, frequently bailed out by his bionic preppy sidekick Win Lockwood, has identified the rogue poster. Instead of resolving Suzze’s domestic problems, however, the revelation just drags Myron’s own family—his estranged brother Brad, Brad’s wife Kitty and their son Mickey—into them, along with another notable family, the mobbed-up Ache brothers. How deep can Myron dig without running afoul of fearsome Herman Ache? And how deep does he want to dig when the results threaten his own parents’ peace of mind and his possible détente with the brother he hasn’t seen for 15 years? Despite the promise of dark family secrets, this is the most conventional of Myron’s recent cases (Long Lost, 2009, etc.), heavy with cheesy cliffhangers and eye-popping coincidences. Fans will be rewarded by the nonstop plot twists Coben must have patented.