Coben’s Myron Bolitar is one of my very favorite mystery/detective/thriller genre characters.  A 6’4″ former All-American basketball player at Duke whose NBA career ended in his first exhibition game due to a severe and intentional knee injury, Myron turned to the law and a career as a sports rep, assisted by the inimitable Winthrop Horne Lockwood and his loyal office staff of Esperanza and Big Cindi.

When a new Myron Bolitar book appeared on the shelf at the Cambridge Public Library, I was thrilled and overjoyed and rushed home to read it.  Ugh!!! Serious letdown.

Reading it was like watching a former sports great who didn’t know when to retire and whose final season was a disaster.  Gone were the clever repartee, the tense plot, the impressive bad guys. Instead, Coben offered up lots of background for the reader new to the series and a far-fetched plot that he apparently didn’t know how to end, so it went on and on and fizzled in the final pages.

Cobren began writing the Boitar series in 1995 and turned one out nearly every year or two until 2009. Since then, there have only been three and the last one before Think Twice was eight years ago.  He clearly must need the money.

I’ll spare you the story line.  There is some good dialogue but not enough to warrant spending the several hours slogging through this book  Farewell Myron, Winn, Esperanza, Big Cindi, and Myron’s parents Al and Ellen.