Long Lost

Long Lost, by Harlan Coben. Dutton, $27.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-525-95105-6

Prolific best-seller Coben returns with his ninth Myron Bolitar thriller (after 2006's Promise Me). This time out the former basketball star and current entertainment agent is caught in a fiendish terrorist plot that has him piling up the frequent-flier miles.

It all starts out innocently enough. The forty-something Bolitar, who's involved in a relationship with a "Nine/Eleven widow," gets a call from old flame Terese Collins. The two once shared a passionate three weeks in the Caribbean, but Terese, a former CNN anchor, disappeared shortly thereafter and hadn't been seen in eight years.

"Come to Paris," she asks. Bolitar is reluctant, but his best friend and business partner Win Lockwood, reminds him of Terese's "world-class derriere" and before long our hero is headed for Paris.

As it turns out, Terese has more than sex on her mind although there's that too. It seems that her ex-husband, investigative journalist Rick Collins, has disappeared and she wants Bolitar's help in finding him.

Things get complicated thereafter. Collins turns up dead. DNA tests of the blood at the scene show that Collins' daughter also was present. The only problem—and it's a big one—is that Collins doesn't have a daughter. He and Terese had a daughter once—seven-year-old Miriam—but she died in a tragic traffic accident. That's why Terese disappeared. To darkest Africa, it turns out.

Then, things get really complicated. It further turns out that Collins—and now Terese and Bolitar—have stumbled onto an international terrorist plot of diabolical proportions. Before it's over—and is it ever over?—Bolitar will encounter all manner of challenges: Mossad, anti-abortion activists, CIA black sites, Interpol, rendition, waterboarding, stem cell researchers, and enough facile jokes to embarrass a lesser man.

Bolitar's best buddy, the forty-something Win, has a twenty-something Oriental girlfriend. Her name is Mee, pronounced "me." Win, it seems, loves Mee jokes. Maybe he knows that they're lame, but he can't help himself. Here's an example: "Win slapped my back. 'Feel good about yourself, Myron. After all, I feel good about Mee.'" It gets tiresome. To his credit, Coben doesn't resort to the ultimate Mee joke: "The devil make Mee do it."

People are dying right and left, and these two middle-age professionals manage to keep up the frat boy humor throughout. It does have a way of diminishing the suspense.

Nevertheless, Coben knows how to keep the action moving along briskly and the reader turning the pages. The plot twists like a mountain road but Coben ties everything together in a tense climax. It's not Robert B. Parker. It's not even Randy Wayne White. But, Coben's fans likely will be happy to see Bolitar back again.