The fourth Myron Bolitar novel is set in and around Merion golf club at a US Open. Jack Coldren is in the lead. Myron is there to woo potential clients, but he gets drawn in by the Coldren family when Chad, Jack’s son, is kidnapped. Unfortunately Myron has to investigate on his own because Win doesn’t refuses to get involved. The reason for this is something that Myron will have to uncover if he is to rescue Chad, and find out who abducted him. Not quite up to the high standards of the first three books (it feels unbalanced, with the ending being much heavier than the light, jokey beginning), but still a top slice of detective entertainment.

An old-fashioned whodunnit murder mystery set in the high-pressure world of a budget airline. Althought it is ostensibly a “John Putnam Thatcher mystery”, Thatcher only plays a very small part in the book. In fact, the only reason I can see for him being present is to put his name in the blurb. His presence doesn’t further the plot in any way. Although he and his cronies do eventually figure out who committed the crime, they show up at the denouement just after the killer has made a confession. The rest of the story follows the various suspects while they spin off their own theories and try to backstab each other (politically) in a struggle for control of the airline. Unfortunately neither the characters nor the battle for power are terribly interesting.

Ten years ago, just as he was about to turn pro, Myron Bolitar’s knee was wrecked in an accident on the basketball court. Despite extensive therapy, he never recovered enough to play at that level again. But now Clip Arnstein, owner of the championship-winning New Jersey Dragons, wants Myron to join the team. The real reson he want to sign Myron is not because he wants him to play, but because Greg Downing, one of the Dragons’ star players, has gone missing and he wants Myron to find him. Ten years ago, Greg and Myron were personal and professional arch rivals, and Arnstein hopes that being on the team will give Myron a better opportunity to track Greg down.

In the first two Myron Bolitar novels, Deal Breaker and Drop Shot, Coben only played about with Myron’s injury. We found out how it had changed the course of his life, turning him towards law school and a career as a sports agent. But it was mostly background colour, illustrating Myron’s history in sports, rather than pivotal plot information. In Fade Away, Myron confronts anew all of the issues he thought he had buried ten years ago. As the the missing person mystery progresses, he and his friends have to deal with the emotional turmoil that arises from the glimmer of hope that he might be able to play again. And eventually, they come to realize that the two halves of the story are more deeply and painfully connected than any of them had suspected.

In Drop Shot, Myron Bolitar’s superstar tennis client, Duane Richwood, is playing in the early rounds of the US Open when Valerie Simpson, a former child tennis star, is shot dead. Valerie had approached Myron about being her agent while she staged her comeback. When the police start questioning Duane about his involvement, Myron digs deeper into the case, and soon finds out that all the threads lead back to the murder of a US Senator’s son six years earlier. A murder that no-one wants to see investigated again… Another cracking mystery from Harlan Coben.

Myron Bolitar: former pro-basketball star, lawyer and sports agent, with a history that also involves a certain amount of work for the FBI. How can you not love a character like that? Add in his friend and business partner, Windsor Horne Lockwood III, part East-Coast American upper-class snob, part martial arts genius with a brutal sociopathic streak, and you have a detective pairing that’s right up there with Spenser and Hawk, and Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Throw in a story about young football star whose missing (presumed dead) ex-fiancée shows up in the back of a porn magazine, and you get a delicious mystery covering corruption, blackmail, and murder. Coben’s writing is both humorous and sympathetic. He weaves a satisfyingly twisty plot, and resolves it neatly at the end. This is the first book of his I’ve read, and I’m eagerly looking forward to many more.

Should really have been called, “An Abbreviated History of Western Scientific Thinking, from 1600 to Modern Times”, but that wouldn’t have been nearly so catchy. Nor is the book much more interesting than the expanded title would suggest. If you have any kind of interest in popular science, this book is going to seem like an extensive re-hash of what you already know. Bryson spends a lot of time relating anecdotes involving both key and lesser-known scientific figures from the last few hundred years, but the scope of the book inevitably forces him to omit lots of detail. If you have watched the BBC series Local Heroes with Adam Hart Davies, you’ll be very disappointed. Bryson doesn’t have the same energy or love for the subject matter as Hart Davies. Although his foreword proclaims a burning desire to understand the questions science has answered (or tried to answer), by the end of the book his wit feels forced, and any impression of real enthusiasm has fallen by the wayside. Pity.