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Darkest Fear
Cover of Darkest Fear
Darkest Fear
A Myron Bolitar Novel
Borrow Borrow
Edgar Award-winner Harlan Coben brings us his most astonishing—and deeply personal—novel yet. And it all begins when Myron Bolitar’s ex tells him he’s a father . . . of a dying thirteen-year-old boy.
Myron never saw it coming. A surprise visit from an ex-girlfriend is unsettling enough. But Emily Downing’s news brings him to his knees. Her son Jeremy is dying and needs a bone-marrow transplant—from a donor who has vanished without a trace. Then comes the real shocker: The boy is Myron’s son, conceived the night before her wedding to another man.
Staggered by the news, Myron plunges into a search for the missing donor. But finding him means cracking open a dark mystery that involves a broken family, a brutal kidnapping spree, and the FBI. Somewhere in the sordid mess is the donor who disappeared. And as doubts emerge about Jeremy’s true paternity, a child vanishes, igniting a chain reaction of heartbreaking truth and chilling revelation.
Praise for Darkest Fear
“A slam dunk . . . You race to turn the pages . . . both suspenseful and often surprisingly funny.”People

“Terrific.”Boston Globe

“A winner.”Orlando Sentinel

“Fast-paced . . . layered with both tenderness and fun . . . Coben [is] a gifted storyteller.”Denver Post
Edgar Award-winner Harlan Coben brings us his most astonishing—and deeply personal—novel yet. And it all begins when Myron Bolitar’s ex tells him he’s a father . . . of a dying thirteen-year-old boy.
Myron never saw it coming. A surprise visit from an ex-girlfriend is unsettling enough. But Emily Downing’s news brings him to his knees. Her son Jeremy is dying and needs a bone-marrow transplant—from a donor who has vanished without a trace. Then comes the real shocker: The boy is Myron’s son, conceived the night before her wedding to another man.
Staggered by the news, Myron plunges into a search for the missing donor. But finding him means cracking open a dark mystery that involves a broken family, a brutal kidnapping spree, and the FBI. Somewhere in the sordid mess is the donor who disappeared. And as doubts emerge about Jeremy’s true paternity, a child vanishes, igniting a chain reaction of heartbreaking truth and chilling revelation.
Praise for Darkest Fear
“A slam dunk . . . You race to turn the pages . . . both suspenseful and often surprisingly funny.”People

“Terrific.”Boston Globe

“A winner.”Orlando Sentinel

“Fast-paced . . . layered with both tenderness and fun . . . Coben [is] a gifted storyteller.”Denver Post
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Excerpts-
  • From the book An hour before his world exploded like a ripe tomato under a stiletto heel, Myron bit into a fresh pastry that tasted suspiciously like a urinal cake.

    "Well?" Mom prompted.

    Myron battled his throat, won a costly victory, swallowed. "Not bad."

    Mom shook her head, disappointed.

    "What?"

    "I'm a lawyer," Mom said. "You'd think I'd have raised a better liar."

    "You did the best you could," Myron said.

    She shrugged and waved a hand at the, uh, pastry. "It's my first time baking, bubbe. It's okay to tell me the truth."

    "It's like biting into a urinal cake," Myron said.

    "A what?"

    "In men's public bathrooms. In the urinals. They put them there for the smell or something."

    "And you eat them?"

    "No—"

    "Is that why your father takes so long in there? He's having a little Tastykake? And here I thought his prostate was acting up."

    "I'm joking, Mom."

    She smiled through blue eyes tinged with a red that Visine could never hope to get out, the red you can only get through slow, steady tears. Normally Mom was heavily into histrionics. Slow, steady tears were not her style. "So am I, Mr. Smarty Pants. You think you're the only one in this family with a sense of humor?"

    Myron said nothing. He looked down at the, uh, pastry, fearing or perhaps hoping it might crawl away. In the thirty-plus years his mother had lived in this house, she had never baked — not from a recipe, not from scratch, not even from one of those Pillsbury morning croissant thingies that came in small mailing tubes. She could barely boil water without strict instructions and pretty much never cooked, though she could whip up a mean Celeste frozen pizza in the microwave, her agile fingers dancing across the numerical keypad in the vein of Nureyev at Lincoln Center. No, in the Bolitar household, the kitchen was more a gathering place — a Family Room Lite, if you will — than anything related to even the basest of the culinary arts. The round table held magazines and catalogs and congealing white boxes of Chinese takeout. The stovetop saw less action than a Merchant-Ivory production. The oven was a prop, strictly for show, like a politician's Bible.

    Something was definitely amiss.

    They were sitting in the living room with the dated pseudo-leather white modular couch and aqua-tinged rug whose shagginess reminded Myron of a toilet-seat cover. Grown-up Greg Brady. Myron kept stealing glances out the picture window at the For Sale sign in the front yard as though it were a spaceship that had just landed and something sinister was about to step out.

    "Where's Dad?"

    Mom gave a weary wave toward the door. "He's in the basement."

    "In my room?"

    "Your old room, yes. You moved out, remember?"

    He did — at the tender age of thirty-four no less. Childcare experts would salivate and tsk-tsk over that one — the prodigal son choosing to remain in his split-level cocoon long after the deemed appropriate deadline for the butterfly to break free. But Myron might argue the opposite. He might bring up the fact that for generations and in most cultures, offspring lived in the familial home until a ripe old age, that adopting such a philosophy could indeed be a societal boom, helping people stay rooted to something tangible in this era of the disintegrating nuclear family. Or, if that rationale didn't float your boat, Myron could try another. He had a million.

    But the truth of the matter was far simpler:...
About the Author-
  • Harlan Coben is the winner of the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony awards. His critically acclaimed novels have been published in forty-one languages around the world and have been number one bestsellers in more than half a dozen countries. In addition to the Myron Bolitar series (Deal Breaker, Drop Shot, Fade Away, Back Spin, One False Move, The Final Detail, Darkest Fear, Promise Me, Long Lost, and Live Wire), Coben is also the author of the young adult Mickey Bolitar series including Shelter and Seconds Away, and of Miracle Cure, Play Dead, Tell No One, Gone for Good, No Second Chance, Just One Look, The Innocent, The Woods, Hold Tight, Caught, and Stay Close.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    Starred review from May 29, 2000
    Book seven in Coben's wonderfully rich series (after 1999's The Final Detail), which features sports agent Myron Bolitar, former basketball player and totally believable human being, is all about fathers, sons and the intricate and often painful chains that link them together. Myron, who has just moved out of his parents' house at the age of 34, is worried about his father's health after a heart attack, but it's hard for either of them to talk about the older man's condition. Myron tends to have long relationships with women that end in tears. ("You're in your mid-thirties, single, sensitive, and you like show tunes," says his current lover, a troubled television star. "If you were a better dresser, I'd say you were gay.") Emily, his college girlfriend from Duke who dumped him for a more successful basketball rival, re-enters the picture to tell him that her critically ill 13-year-old son needs a bone marrow transplant, but the only suitable registered donor has disappeared. Can Myron find him? And, by the way--Myron is the boy's real father. The search takes Myron deep into some decades-old unsolved crimes involving another father and son--a sadistic deranged killer and a conflicted newspaper columnist. Myron's deadly preppy friend, Win, is on hand to supply his own frightening brand of violence, and the gorgeous Esperanza Diaz, the former wrestler who's now a full partner in MB SportsReps, supplies wisdom as well as glamour. But the heart of the novel is, as always, the fallible but infinitely appealing, accessible figure of Myron Bolitar--a modern Don Quixote complete with knee brace and cell phone, ready to take on the world's problems.

  • Library Journal

    May 1, 2000
    Manhattan sports agent Myron Bolitar is shocked when his former college lover informs him he is the father of her 13-year-old son, who has anemia. But the girlfriend--now inimically divorced from her husband--only uses that fact to convince him to locate the boy's bone-marrow donor, who has disappeared. Bolitar's subsequent quest pits him against a wealthy, publicity-shy, and bitterly scrapping family with hitherto secret connections to a crazed kidnapper. Crisp, focused prose, a wisecracking but gallant hero, and a busy plot make this essential for most collections.

    Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • School Library Journal

    November 1, 2000
    YA-Struggling to keep his sports agency afloat, Myron Bolitar is not thrilled to have a former girlfriend resurface after many years. Sadly, her 13-year-old son desperately needs a bone-marrow transplant from a person who has mysteriously disappeared. The woman asks for Myron's help in locating the missing donor and confides to him that he is the boy's father. Against his better judgment, the protagonist begins to search for the man who can save Jeremy's life. The plot twists are numerous as Myron stumbles upon a powerful family hiding a grave secret, a serial killer reinvented from a plagiarized novel, and a missing person with a dual identity. Myron's wit and personality- plus his partners, Win and lesbian-wrestler lawyer Esperanza-add a light touch whenever the novel becomes too dark. Suspense, mystery, DNA matching, missing persons, and a shoot-out at the end will keep YAs enthralled. This seventh book in the series will make new fans and not disappoint old ones.-Katherine Fitch, Rachel Carson Middle School, Fairfax, VA

    Copyright 2000 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • Booklist

    May 1, 2000
    Sports agent Myron Bolitar is busy hustling new clients and schmoozing old ones when his first love drops back into his life. She has some news for Myron: she broke up with Greg, and her son, who is dying of a rare form of anemia, is also Myron's son. The boy, Jeremy, needs a bone marrow transplant if his life is to be saved. A possible donor has disappeared. Will Myron help? The search points to the son of powerful East Coast parents, but they aren't talking. Then Jeremy is kidnapped by a serial killer who seems intent on psychologically torturing his victims' families. The Bolitar thrillers are always leavened with humor, no matter how grim the content, and this one is no exception. Even so, the darkness of the plot and the seriousness of the theme--the reponsibilities of parenthood--give this installment added impact. Thought-provoking issues and mind-numbing terror made more real by their human context. ((Reviewed May 1, 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)

  • People

    "A slam dunk ... You race to turn the pages ... both suspenseful and often surprisingly funny."

  • Boston Globe "Terrific."
  • Orlando Sentinel "A winner."
  • Denver Post "Fast-paced ... layered with both tenderness and fun ... Coben [is] a gifted storyteller."
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    Random House Publishing Group
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A Myron Bolitar Novel
Harlan Coben
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