50 pages • 1 hour read
Harlan CobenHome
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide depicts abduction, suicide and suicidal ideation, domestic violence, and the exploitation of minors.
A boy who has been missing for 10 years steps into light. The narrator, Win Lockwood, is not easily shocked, yet his pulse races as he sees the boy. Patrick Moore is standing under a dirty underpass with two other teenagers, including one wearing a dog collar. London’s King’s Cross has been recently gentrified, but the area is still an option for people who are looking for in-person sex tourism. Win wants to sprint to Patrick and save him, but he cannot do this, because he does not see Rhys.
Rhys is the son of Win’s cousin Brooke. Both boys went missing while on a playdate when they were six years old. Win fears that if he grabs Patrick, Rhys will be killed or punished. He plans to follow Patrick when he leaves the area. A man in a melon-colored shirt approaches Patrick, and Win recognizes that this man is dangerous. Two men in camouflage pants also approach Patrick and begin to beat him. Win approaches them. He is wearing well-tailored, expensive clothes and stands out in this bleak underpass. He wonders if the men are carrying weapons but does not worry. Using a concealed razor, Win slashes the throat of one of the men. Patrick flees, and Win realizes that he blew his cover. Win calls his friend Myron and asks him to join him in London.
Chapter 2 Summary
Myron Bolitar is in bed with his fiancée Terese in their apartment in New York City. The phone rings, piercing their happy moment. Myron sees that the number is blocked and is shocked to hear Win’s voice. Win asks him to come to London and Myron agrees. They discuss a new documentary that explores the downfall of Myron’s basketball career. Then Win shares details of a case that he wants Myron to investigate.
He explains that when Patrick and Rhys were six years old, they were playing at Rhys’s house in the care of Vada Linna, an 18-year-old Finnish au pair. When Patrick’s mother Nancy went to pick up her son, no one was home. Vada was tied to a chair and gagged; the boys were nowhere to be found. Vada said that two armed men entered through the back door and tied her up. The families received a note saying not to contact the authorities if they wanted to see their children alive. Both families were instructed to drop $2 million, which the FBI tagged. No one picked up the ransom money. The FBI investigated the parents; Chick Baldwin (Rhys’s father), in particular, is an unsavory character guilty of insider trading and embezzlement.
Chapter 3 Summary
Win picks up Myron and gives him a printed email from an anonymous account, which says that the boys were separated but are back together now. The email gives an address in London, the location where Win scouted. Win fills him in on the situation he encountered in the underpass, the fight with the men guarding Patrick, and the boy’s silent, distressed demeanor. Win believes that if Patrick has been found, then Rhys Baldwin—Brooke’s missing son—may be close as well.
Win does not want to give Brooke false hope. She is a joyful person who has worked to bring herself back into the world, and he fears destroying her progress. She once hoped that the phone would ring so that she could hear Rhys’s voice. However, recently she has started hoping that the phone would ring so that she could learn where his body is.
Chapter 4 Summary
Myron goes to King’s Cross, where the police are now investigating Win’s murder of his assailants. He talks to a sex worker who heard what happened yesterday. She advises him to go to Hampstead Heath.
Chapter 5 Summary
Win and Myron examine the age-progression photos of Patrick and Rhys. At Hampstead Heath, he watches as Myron strolls, on the lookout for the boy in the dog collar that Win saw yesterday. Myron finds the boy, whom he thinks of as “Dog Collar,” and asks to chat. The boy leads him away from the main path, nodding at two men in camouflage pants, which makes Myron worry. The men threaten Myron, and he quickly takes them down. Unfortunately, this causes Dog Collar to run away. Win trips him, and he and Myron question the boy, who agrees to take them to Patrick.
Chapter 6 Summary
Myron follows Dog Collar through London. The boy takes Myron into an arcade called Adventure Land, which is full of teenage boys. Men in camouflage pants act like security guards. The boy leads Myron to a door with a surveillance camera. Inside, Myron’s weapons are taken away. He’s taken to a high-tech room where a heavyset Indian man with a shaved head is playing a military-style shooting game. His username is Fat Gandhi.
Fat Gandhi explains that all his employees’ phones act as listening devices. He has looked Myron up and found the ESPN documentary. They all re-watch the many angles of Myron’s knee twisting. Fat Gandhi demands £100,000 cash for each boy. Fat Gandhi shows Myron a monitor viewing a very bloodied Patrick sitting in a cell by himself.
Chapter 7 Summary
Myron calls Terese for her opinion on the parents of Rhys and Patrick; Terese lost a child many years ago, and Myron is looking for insight.
Win meets Myron at a pub called The Crown and they discuss the ESPN documentary. Myron says he is at peace with his injury; his former teammates are all retired now, and the injury led him to a fulfilling career as a sports agent. Win has done a background check on Fat Gandhi, who operates several online money scams, and Win has people casing the arcade. At 4:00 am, Fat Gandhi calls Myron and tells him to go to a bank in Fulham and start the exchange process.
Chapter 8 Summary
Win puts the money in a suitcase and directs Myron to the bank in Fulham. Myron knows that he’s being followed. At the bank, he is told to get into another car. A man with a laptop tells him that his computer is jamming all signals. Myron throws the laptop out the window.
At the arcade, Myron is led to the back room. Fat Gandhi emphasizes how secure the room is and shows Myron the video of the boys. The six men in the room all pull out knives. Myron shouts “Articulate,” a code word that he and Win agreed on, and suddenly, the wall explodes. Myron fights the men and runs to the basement room, which smells disgusting. Twenty teenagers are running from what looks like a refugee camp into a tunnel. Fat Gandhi stabs Patrick, whom Myron saves.
Chapter 9 Summary
After Myron is questioned by the police, he and Win meet up with Brooke Baldwin, Win’s cousin and Rhys’s mother. Myron thinks he grabbed Rhys during the chaotic run into the tunnel, and Brooke says that Nancy is sure that the other boy is Patrick. Brooke is furious that Win did not tell her about the anonymous email as soon as he received it.
Chapters 1-9 Analysis
In these opening chapters, Harlan Coben establishes the perspectives through which the story is told. Although Myron is the protagonist, his sections of the narrative are given in limited omniscient third-person perspective, while Win’s are in a first-person point of view. The difference in the tones of their narration emphasizes Myron’s emotional engagement and Win’s cold logic. This strategy also establishes Myron’s as a credible, objective perspective, while Win’s passages offer greater insight and connection to the character through the first-person narrator but also give the reader insight and information that Win, a quiet person, keeps to himself. The juxtaposition of Win’s first-person narration with Myron’s third-person narration demonstrates that there is often more to Win’s character than meets the eye. He is rarely completely honest when he speaks, and access to his internal monologue allows insight into his sociopathic inability to engage emotionally and his complicated sense of ethics. The relationship between Myron and Win also parallels that of Rhys and Patrick. At this point in the novel, it is possible that Rhys is still alive, and the investigators frequently imagine the boys together.
Coben also develops the characters of both Myron and Win as they navigate The Moral Dilemma Faced by Those Seeking Justice. Myron is concerned with the moral complexities of uncovering painful truths in pursuit of justice, wondering where the line is that shouldn’t be crossed. Although Win is far less emotional and far less concerned with moral complexity, this case is personal for him: He does feel responsibility for protecting the feelings of his cousin Brooke, one of the few people he genuinely cares for. He demonstrates a relentless need for control and a hair-trigger temper. He delights in violence and gleefully murders the man who harms Patrick. He views this penchant for violence as excusable because he only hurts people that he thinks deserve it. Win’s relentless pursuit of vengeance further clouds his moral compass. As Win and Myron delve further into the mystery of the disappearance of the boys, they are forced to confront the lengths they are willing to go to achieve justice. Win feels no qualms about taking justice into his own hands, especially since he perceives this as an essential step in recovering Rhys and Patrick.
Myron’s character is also developed in contrast to other characters in the novel, like Win and Fat Gandhi. Fat Gandhi appears as a foil to Myron; Myron’s positive qualities are mirrored and distorted in the villainous pedophile/pimp/hacker. Fat Gandhi “protects” his employees and people he can take advantage of, while Myron automatically seeks to protect those who are taken advantage of. Myron has a more conventional view of the legal system than Win does, but he is also willing to perform vigilante justice when an innocent life is at stake. Similarly, he is willing to invoke attorney-client privilege when interrogated by the London police to remove Win from suspicion. By placing Myron in juxtaposition to these characters, Coben deepens his character, showing how he differs from these other characters, and how, in some cases, he is similar.
Coben also takes the time to develop Win independently of Myron. As both a narrator and character, Win is smugly confident and rejoices in casual violence. As he approaches the men who are threatening Patrick, he is superbly confident: “Knives do not worry me much” (6). He is amused by considering how other people perceive him: “I am quite the dandy, aren’t I?” (5). He gleefully anticipates the prospect of violence: “I like the scent of blood too. It has been too long” (7). He does not feel remorse after murdering three men, regretful only regarding his bloodstained suit: “Damn. This will require another visit to Savile Row” (7). Win’s casual and even gleeful acceptance of violence and law-breaking stands in direct contrast to Myron: Although Myron may resort to the same actions, his complex feelings about his actions set him apart from Win.
The narrator’s voice is very clear and informative, summarizing quickly, especially with regard to information offered in previous books in the series. Description and backstory are straightforward and blunt. He succinctly describes the view from Myron’s hotel room: “If you’ve ever seen a New York City movie where a couple in love runs across a footbridge, you’ve seen Bow Bridge” (11). He employs a casual address to his audience, striking a conversational tone: “In case you didn’t get the memo: Win was rich” (16). The narrator also interprets information for the reader, offering casual asides such as “In simple terms, here was the gist” (19). This casual tone and straightforward delivery create credibility, and in a narrative filled with secrets and lies, Coben offers a direct, believable narrator to his reader.
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