Hold Tight

Släpp inte taget har flera olika handlingar som verkat helt sakna samband med varandra men Harlan Coben har lyckats skickligt väva in historier i varandra. Det hade kunnat bli en röra av allting men i släpp inte taget kommer författarens skicklighet fram, han har skapat en thriller som tar upp en viktig fråga de flesta tonårs föräldrar brottas med., Hur långtäkan man gå för att ha koll på sitt barn om man misstänker att något inte står rätt till. Är det ok att spionera, öppna posten, gå igenom mejlen , spåra med gps? Och vill man veta allt om sitt barn?
En spännande bok från första till sista s

Hold Tight is a pacey, slick, well-written thriller that manages to be unexpected and exciting as well as thought-provoking: excellently plotted and enjoyable, it would be a miniature masterpiece for most writers – but not for Harlan Coben.



Coben is one of America’s national treasures, right up there with Lehane, but his last few books have been subtly disappointing. Oh, they are very good of course, but sadly lacking in the wit, humour and personality that made his first novels such a delight.



Books featuring sports agent Myron Bolitar and his group of eccentric friends are a total treat: I have not been as impressed by the stand-alones which while demonstrating the skill and page-turning abilities of the writer are, quite show more simply, not outstanding.



Hold Tight features the Bayes: Mike, a surgeon, Tia, a lawyer, and their two children Adam and Jill. Monied and respected, they appear to live the American dream, but the parents realize their 16-year-old son is disturbed and, after his best friend commits suicide, the situation just gets worse.



Mike and Tia install a spy programme on Adam’s computer, determined to protect him, concerned that he won’t confide in them and worried that whatever pressures drove his friend to kill himself might also affect their son.



When Adam disappears the police are not very concerned, but Mike and Tia are convinced he is in danger and start an investigation of their own – an investigation that almost gets them killed.



Parallel to this domestic drama is the tale of a sadistic murderer who enjoys inflicting pain on his victims, a single-minded psychopath, a killer on a crusade. His path intersects that of the Bayes with fatal results.



Who is this man and what is he capable of – what deaths is he responsible for? And what about the Bayes’ beautiful neighbour and her unpleasant husband, frantically searching for a kidney donor to save the life of their young son?



Then there is Joe Lewiston, a popular teacher who with one carelessly bitchy remark transformed the life of an 11-year-old pupil into a living hell, incurring the eternal enmity of the girl’s parents and friends.



The strands all come together in first a climax then an anticlimax, producing if not a happy ending then at least a non-tragic one for the Bayes. It may be realistic, but life sucks and not everyone who reads thrillers necessarily wants to be reminded of that.



On the upside, Hold Tight sees the welcome return of homicide detective Loren Muse [the Woods, The Innocent] and Essex county prosecutor Paul Copeland, whom we also met in The Woods: the book features the notorious lawyer Hester Crimstein , a serial character from the Coben opus, although generally found in the company of Myron Bolitar.



The book raises some issues like under-age privacy: the Bayes’ 11-year-old saves the day by using a gun she and her friend discovered by snooping but by installing spyware on his computer – despite having good reason to be concerned – Mike and Tia have forever forfeited Adam’s trust by their own snooping.



To put it in old fashioned terms, if you suspected your child was at risk, would you read her diary? Coben faces the question of privacy head on, forcing the reader to question assumptions. A good book, a good plot and a good read – but not a good example of Harlan Coben’s genius. show less

Hold Tight might not be Harlan Coben’s best book ever, but it’s right up there. Like a literary version of the movie Crash, this book brings a series of seemingly unconnected—and disconcerting—storylines together in increasingly unexpected ways. As the characters and subplots draw closer together, Coben reveals clues with agonizing slowness, tantalizing the reader with glimpses of possibility before veering off in another direction. By the time all the stories have been brought to their unified and amazingly coherent conclusion, the only loose end that remains is the unsettling reality of the human condition.

Faced with a sudden decline in their 16-year-old son Adam’s school performance after a friend’s suicide, Mike and Tia show more Baye decide after some soul-searching to install a spyware device on Adam’s computer. What they find is not reassuring. Meanwhile, their daughter Jill is dealing with a close friend’s public humiliation after a teacher’s mean-spirited comment. Their next-door neighbor’s son has been diagnosed with a potential fatal kidney disorder. A woman with local ties dies violently. And when Adam disappears after a cryptic instant-message exchange suggesting a drug party, the Bayes must battle unanswered questions, unhelpful authorities, and unresolved family issues in their quest to find—and hopefully save—their son.

The book should be read with caution, as it contains lots of drug references, some minor language, and some inexplicit sexual content. But the real tension comes not from objectionable material but from the choices the characters face. Coben does a masterful job of allowing his characters to face real, difficult issues and deal with them in a variety of ways—some admirable, some most definitely not. If the book has an underlying moral theme, it seems to be “live and let live”; the question of whether it’s appropriate for parents to spy on their children takes center stage for much of the story.

This is in some ways an uncomfortable book to read, as the central issues tend to detract from the sheer entertainment value. Nevertheless, Coben has succeeded in combining those issues with good writing and excellent pacing to form a true-to-life story that will stay in the back of readers’ minds for a long time after the final page is read. show less

A pageturner - as I expected. My second book by Harlan Coben - and not the last, that's for sure.

Harlan Coben mixes various plots in this thriller. A couple decides to spy on their son after the suicide of one of his friends. A killer is on the loose, beating women to death, a teacher's life becomes miserable after he makes an unfair remark towards a girl in class, leading to mobbing from her classmates.
The author did a good job portraying the kids and teens. They were believable, their problems were understandable. The ethical question if it is ok to spy on your children in order to keep them out of trouble was especially interesting - and the author offers no easy solution, just food for thoughts.
I did not like the plot concerning show more the killer that much. I found that part of the book a little exaggerated - that's the reason why I give four instead of five stars. show less

In Harlan Coben's latest thriller, HOLD TIGHT, Mike and Tia Baye experience a chilling couple of days because of a decision to put spyware on their son's computer.

When Mike and Tia learn through an e-mail that Adam is going to attend a party with drinking and drugs, they set out to intercept him and prevent him from going without letting on to the fact that they know, and even more importantly HOW they know. But something goes awry when there is no party. But where is Adam? That's when Mike starts following him via the GPS in Adam's cell phone. This plan leads Mike to a shady neighborhood where HE is attacked, and he still hasn't found Adam.

As if Mike Baye doesn't have enough to worry about, his medical partner, Ilene Goldfarb is show more treating Lucas Loriman, the son of his next door neighbors Susan and Dante Loriman. Through blood testing to find a kidney donor, they learn that Dante is not Lucas's father. The young boy doesn't have much hope unless they can locate his actual father or a paternal relative.

AND the plot continues to layer with the abductions and murders of two women connected to this same neighborhood. Those murders tie into a whole separate element of the novel - or so it seems to be separate.

Coben juggles a lot of characters and plot lines in this novel. He does bring them together at the end of the book, but you may want to have a small chart to keep track of everyone in the book. I found myself asking, "now which character is this again?" quite often throughout the book.

If you're a parent, this book might just scare the bejeebers out of you. The obvious question threaded throughout the entire book is "should you spy on your children?" And Coben doesn't give you his opinion one way or the other. That's the point of the multi-dimensional plot. He gives you a look at the evils of both options.

Coben has this knack for slowly giving you clues that you don't know you're getting. So you feel like you're in the dark with no idea where you're headed - and with the twists and turns in this novel, that just intensifies the feeling of being completely lost. But then he starts to bring all the pieces together and they make sense. I found myself saying, "of course!" more times than once as the book was drawing to a close. I will admit that there was one element I found too convenient in the end, but you can have that with fiction, I guess.

I think I've said this before about Coben, but every time I pick up one of his books I think it should be locked in a time capsule. He defines the statement "art imitates life." This book deals with present-day technology and the ethics surrounding that technology, but it also imitates the language and values of the present. While I do hope the events of this book aren't happening (or haven't happened) anywhere in the world, it isn't hard to imagine them happening because of the realism in all other elements of the book.

One of the other heavy topics that comes up in this book is teenage suicide. One of the characters commits suicide before the story begins. Coben gives the reader a glimpse of the effects this event has on both parents as well as the character's best friend. I've not had a child commit suicide, but I could definitely connect with Betsy Hill after this insight:

"The house was dead.

That was how Betsy Hill would describe it. Dead. It wasn't merely quiet or still. The house was hollow, gone, deceased - its heart had stopped beating, the blood had stopped flowing, the innards had begun to decay.

Dead. Dead as a doornail, whatever the hell that meant.

Dead as her son, Spencer."

Don't look for a lot of character development in this novel. The focus is more on the ethical question of spying and on the plot development. Of course at 415 pages, if Coben had put in more character development, I might have been reading for another week. But I think the lack of character development was intentional. This approach made the scenario open to anyone. This isn't something that could happen to only a select, specific group of people, but rather it could happen to the family down the street...or even the family right there in your own home. And that is the scariest part of all. show less

Harlan Coben plays on every parents nightmare in Hold Tight. What would you do to save your child? How far are you willing to go to keep them safe? out of trouble? alive? Would you spy on them? follow them? die for them?

Hold Tight is the story of Dr. Mike Baye (pronounce "bye") and his family's spiral into the terror of a teenage son who's missing and possibly into drugs, responsible somehow for his best friend's suicide, and in deep with a club specializing in being a haven, and facilatator, for teen partying.

"She looked up and down at the block. The houses were all so alike. She thought again about the sturdy structures trying to protect lives that were much too fragile. The Lorimans had a sick son. Hers was missing and probably show more involved in something illegal."

This book explores the difficult issues of trust within a family, between friends, neighbors, and business partners. "Trust is like that. You can break it for a good reason. But it still remains broken." You can spy on someone for the right reason, even save their life, but in doing so you lose their trust, and a relationship falls apart in the absence of trust.

Hold Tight is a great book for fans of crime/mystery/suspense novels, and is an intense read for parents. All through the book, I kept thinking of my kids; what would I do? How far would I go to protect them? show less

Hold Tight is an entertaining crime/suspense novel. There are two central storylines: parents decide to "spy" on their son's online activity after a friend's suicide, and a serial murderer and his accomplice are viciously killing women. I appreciated how this novel used technology in entirely realistic ways (spyware, gps locators, etc) rather than going far-fetched as some tech-thrillers do. I wasn't thrilled with how long it took for the two story lines to connect, and even then the connection was light. Great ending, though.