Mystery & Suspense
A Q&A with Harlan Coben:
How different is each book that you write from the one you had in your head when you began writing?
Pretty different. That's a good thing. Part of writing is trying to reach a stage of Nirvana you can never achieve—and thus, you want to try again.
How do you try to top yourself with each book? Do you feel pressure?
Always. The pressure is self-inflicted though: I want to get better. I want each book to be my best. When I stop wanting that - when I don't feel that pressure anymore — I think I will be in big trouble.
Read an excerpt from Hold Tight:
Marianne nursed her third shot of Cuervo, marveling at her endless capacity to destroy any good in her pathetic life, when the man next to her shouted, "Listen up, sweetcakes: Creationism and evolution are totally compatible."
His spittle landed on Marianne's neck. She made a face and shot the man a quick glance. He had a big bushy mustache straight out of a seventies porn flick. He sat on her right. The over-bleached blonde with brittle hair of straw he was trying to impress with this stimulating banter was on her left. Marianne was the unlucky luncheon meat in their bad-pickup sandwich.
she tried to ignore them. She peered into her glass as if it were a diamond she was sizing up for an engagement ring. Marianne hoped that it would make the mustache man and straw-haired woman disappear. It didn't.
"You're crazy," Straw Hair said.
"Hear me out."
"Okay, I'll listen. But I think you're crazy."
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