Darkest Fear

By: Harlan Coben

Narrated by: Jonathan Marosz

Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Edgar Award-winner Harlan Coben is at his electrifying best in his latest novel - a dazzling tale of seething mystery and dark family secrets.

In Darkest Fear, Myron Bolitar faces the most emotionally shattering case of his career. And it all begins when Myron's ex-girlfriend tells him he is a father - of a dying 13-year-old boy....

Myron's sports agency is struggling. Now more than ever, Myron needs to keep his eye on the ball, sign up some big-name clients, and turn away from the amateur detective work that is taking precious time away from the agency.

But life is not going according to plan. Myron's father, recently recovered from a heart attack, is facing his own mortality - and forcing Myron to face it, too. Then comes another surprise. Emily Downing, Myron's college sweetheart, reappears in his life with devastating news: Her 13-year-old son, Jeremy, is gravely ill and can be saved only by a bone-marrow transplant - from a donor who has vanished without a trace. And before Myron can absorb this revelation, Emily hits him with an even bigger shocker: Jeremy is Myron's son, conceived the night before Emily's wedding to another man.

Staggered by the news, Myron plunges into a search for the missing donor. But for Myron, finding the only person in the world who can save a boy's life means cracking open a mystery as dark as it is heartbreaking - a mystery that involves a broken family, a brutal kidnapping spree, and a cat-and-mouse game between an ambitious reporter and the FBI.

Somewhere in the sordid mess is the man who once signed his name to a bone-marrow donor's registry, then disappeared. And as doubts emerge about Jeremy's true paternity, a child vanishes, igniting a chain reaction of truth and revelation that will change everyone's life forever.

At once a riveting mystery and a spellbinding journey into the secrets that haunt families, lovers, and friends, Darkest Fear proves once again that Harlan Coben is a master storyteller like no other - and one of the most original talents in suspense fiction today.

©2000 Harlan Coben (P)2000 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"Don't let Coben's wry observations fool you. They gift wrap keen insights into our society." (Washington Post Book World)

Amazing narrator

Best narrator ever! He catches all the subtle humor and sarcasm with which Coben writes. Another excellent Myron plot which did not disappoint!

Love this!

I love Myron Bolitar and Jonathan
Mayrose is my all time favorite reader. He is anything but flat!

Hey... It's Myron Bolitar and Crew!

Okay... the ending's either a hair ragged or I needed to pay a tad more attention. But this is an ensemble that's always fun to visit. Myron's growing darker with each new novel in this series and I'm worried that Coben might be beginning with this installment to be finding it difficult to carve the stone as sharply as he's done before. Still, Jonathan Marosz continues to create Coben's cast in ways that resonate with me. I'll find the next book in this series. But, reward yourself and don't start with "Darket Fears". Go to the beginning of this Bolitar story and work forward. This experience will be a lot fuller if you do.

Narrator is fabulous - Love Myron Bolitar

These are fun ---the narrator is fantastic. Unfortunately the next 3 in the series have a different narrator and he is awful. Rins the entire relationship that was built up. Guess I will have to read the others.

Clever tale, witty prose , properly snide delivery

To quote Myron Bolitar, "Good one." No one can deliver the repartee between these characters better than Jonathan Marosz. It ain't no Pulitzer, but superior in its genre.

Darkest Fear

Harlan Coben knows how to write. This was suspenseful and exciting. Another good one by the author.

Myron Bolitar retires. Harlan Coben moves on.

This is the seventh Myron Bolitar novel, I believe, and we can see why Mr. Coben decided to put the character to rest. Coben had clearly taken this character as far as he could. The book is certainly readable, and Jonathan Marosz makes it listenable. But the cast of characters seems tired rather than fresh, and each of them has become unidimensional, with the possible exception of Windsor Locke Horne III, who is something of a cartoon anyway. The plot has devolved into something resembling supermarket paperback stuff. Coben has by this time amassed a large audience, and I really believe that he did not want to milk this character, his first creation, to the bitter end. Unfortunately, the humor by this point is pretty much gone. We were delighted at first by Esperanza and Big Cindi, along with Myron and Win and Myron's parents, but none of them has grown. The story involves a 13-year-old boy who is Myron's son by an old flame named Emily. The boy needs a bone marrow transplant, for which there are very few donors. Near the end we learn that the father of a journalist friend has kidnapped Jeremy, the boy, but frankly the plot has twisted so many times and turned for no reason other than to complicate things, that Coben actually manages to squeeze this stuff so hard that it's a little boring. Good thing he began writing other books.

Marosz and Coben brilliance

Amazing how a good story can be great by getting the right narrator- afraid this is the last one marisz reads, and my myron b therefore also ends here. Coben should not read-stick to writing, you're good at it.

Myron for THE WIN... AGAIN!!

Love the characters in this series. Stories are always top notch! Always sad to come to the end. I am a FAN!!

Best Yet

I've really enjoyed all this series, but this has been the best one yet. The plot has many twists, but there all set up and all fair.