I Will Find You
So much more than a suspense novel
How’s this for an opening sentence:
I am serving the fifth year of a life sentence for murdering my own child.
Harlan Coben is one of those authors whose books I snap up when I see them and then titrate through the year when I’m looking for the indulgence of a sure-fire good read. He has more than eighty million in print worldwide so it’s not difficut! His suspense novel, I Will Find You, was my reward this week for an exceptionally frenetic time juggling lots of demands.
It exceeded expectation. Not only was it the usual juggernaut of tension and conflict, but it strayed into my own field of interest: medical ethics! The ins and outs of infertility treatment to be precise; informed consent; prolonging life v merciful death. Who knew?!
The narrator is David Burroughs. The child in question Matthew, aged 3, found dead in his bedroom, battered so severely that he’s unrecognisable. And the evidence against David is indeed compelling. In the house alone with his son. The worse for drink. Covered in Matthew’s blood. Known to have occasional violent outbursts and sleepwalking. A witness who states under oath that she saw him burying the murder weapon. His fingerprints the only ones on the handle.
When we meet him after five years in prison, Burroughs is reconciled to his fate. He is guilty after all – guilty of not having protected his precious son from whatever happened that night. He isolates himself; refuses to see visitors. Nothing of this horrific experience must further taint those he cares about. He loses touch with what’s happening in the outside world.
But then his sister-in-law, Rachel, insists on seeing him; absolutely insists. She brings with her a photograph taken by a friend at a theme park. The subjects in the foreground are a happy family enjoying innocent amusement, but in the background is a boy … a boy who looks uncannily like Matthew. It can’t be! It’s impossible. But … Against logic, hope stirs in David, and a renewed purpose is kindled. He has to find this boy … his boy … prove his own innocence … But first he has to achieve the impossible: find a way of escaping prison.
The developments that follow keep the reader in a state of high tension, willing him to stay ahead of the authorities, as he searches out those who might lead him to his boy, those who were involved in some way in framing him, and whoever it was who killed the lad lying in that bed that night wearing Matthew’s Marvel-hero-themed pyjamas.