by Tina Haapala

Created on: December 13, 2009

Chances are, you are reading this review on a computer. Or a phone. The question is, who has a read on you? Harlan Coben's "Hold Tight" explores our relatively new tools of communication and uses them to tell an intricate story of suspense and intrigue. Not by Bond-like spies, but by people like us, the everyday users of computers and cell phones.

Tia and Mike Baye are concerned about their 16 year old son, Adam. It's not only his newly acquired "goth" style. His best friend, Spencer, has recently committed suicide. Adam's no longer interested in sports. And he's not talking. To break through the standard teenage non-responsiveness, Tia and Mike turn to technology. Tia and Mike install spy software onto Adam's computer to learn about his secret life. The parents have to weigh the implications of invading their son's privacy with their wish to keep him safe. More disturbing than the porn are the messages they discover about their son's involvement with drinking and drugs. And something else. Something that makes them believe he is in over his head.

Is it too late? Adam sneaks out of the house and severs even more communication. He doesn't answer his cell phone, doesn't return his voice mails. What is a worried father to do? Track him down with a GPS locator, of course. While Mike struggles with how he would explain to his son how he found him, some sinister people already see him coming, and they introduce him to a world he never imagined his son would find himself in.

Meanwhile, there's a killer on the loose. Him and his accomplice have some kind of sick reasoning for their brutality, but it takes the twists and turns of the tale for the reader to glimpse into why and how it relates to Mike Bay's patients, children and his daughter's schoolmates. The gruesome deaths of a string of women are not as cut and dried as the killer makes them seem, and Chief Investigator Loren Muse must discover the truth while fighting old fashioned sexism and politics in the workplace. 

Coben effortlessly tells the intertwined tales of several characters while keeping the reader interested and turning the pages. At the end of the book, you are surprised at just how many lives this novel delved into. However, they were all important to the telling of this cautionary tale about the power found in technological eavesdropping. How has the world changed because of our wired status? And what kind of things, like grief and love and heroism, will always stay the same? "Hold Tight" allows us to ponder those questions, hopefully in the privacy of our own minds.

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