Harlan Coben - Play Dead

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Play Dead: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Publisher's Weekly
Terrible secrets lead basketball star David Baskin to fake his death while honeymooning in the tropics in this manipulative but otherwise engaging first novel. His bereaved bride, supermodel Laura Ayars, not sure that David's drowning was accidental, starts sleuthing-which proves dangerous when somebody begins killing people who may have the answers she wants. Meanwhile, David, fitted out with a new identity and appearance, tries out for his original team, the Boston Celtics, and ''replaces'' himself at his former position. Why he has faked his death is explained in the story's penultimate surprise. But why he risks playing in front of fans who know his style is never addressed. Crucial coincidences abound, such as the love affair of David's brother and Laura's sister-adults who, as kids 30 years before, just happen to have witnessed their parents' worst sins. Coben manufactures tension primarily by keeping key details out of his narrative, a method that eventually wears thin. The resolution comes as a relief, with less of a bang than its buildup promises.
Library Journal
Despite its fundamental implausibility, this is an engrossing suspense novel. A star pro basketball player, David Baskin, disappears on his honeymoon, and a mutilated, drowned body is assumed to be his. But strange things are happening to his beautiful widow. And a few months later, a total unknown startles the basketball world with a highly professional style of play exactly like Baskin's. The mystery has its origins in a murder 30 years earlier. The reader's suspicions about what actually happened to Baskin, and about the identity of the murderer, shift as layers of lies are stripped away. Despite the basketball, this is primarily great romantic suspense.- Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Ia.
School Library Journal
When Laura Ayers and David Baskin secretly marry, it is a match made in heaven. She is a former model turned entrepreneur, while he is the Boston Celtics basketball sensation. But tragedy strikes on their Australian honeymoon when David never returns from a swim in treacherous waters. As Laura struggles with her grief, events unfold to make her question David's mysterious disappearance. She begins to uncover a conspiracy of past and present that slowly destroys all those involved. Coben weaves a delicate web of intrigue that throws alternating suspicion on each person Laura trusts. A fast-moving thriller with a rapidly twisting plot that keeps readers in suspense until the final page. -Katherine Fitch, Jefferson Sci-Tech, Alexandria, VA

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He bowed slightly and began to turn. ‘I won’t bother you anymore. Enjoy the party.’

Laura watched him walk away, hating herself for being so defensive, for not trusting the motives of even one man. He had spoken her mind as though her forehead was a window in which he could see her thoughts. But even so, this man would be all wrong for her. A jock? Forget it. She decided simply to push David Baskin from her mind. Strangely, she couldn’t do it.

Back in Australia, a near-naked Laura leaned over and reached for the clock.

10:15 p.m.

The sound of the bush penetrated through the darkness that had blanketed her window. If it were anybody else but David, she would be seriously worried. But David was a superb swimmer, a near-Olympic participant, and more to the point, he was masterfully unpredictable, always throwing a surprise at those who knew him, always tossing an unexpected curve into life. And this was one of the reasons the sports media loved him so. He was the player whose locker the reporters rushed to after a game, the man with the perfect quote for the morning edition. He was the polite-yet-cocky superstar who always managed to live up to his off-color predictions.

Laura threw a blanket over her body. The night air was cool, tingling her nerves as it gently caressed her skin. Hours came and left, taking with them the excuses that had staved off Laura’s panic and dread.

She got dressed at half past midnight and headed down to the lobby. The same receptionist was still on duty and Laura wondered if he ever slept.

‘Excuse me,’ she began, ‘have you seen my husband?’

‘Mr Baskin? No, ma’am. Haven’t seen the mate since he went swimming.’

‘Did he say anything to you before he left?’

‘Not a peep, ma’am. He just handed me the key and that note I gave you. He didn’t even look up.’ The receptionist saw the worried look on her face. ‘Has he not shown up yet?’

‘No, he hasn’t.’

‘Well, now, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Your mate has got quite a reputation in the papers of being a bit of a wild one. He’ll be back by morning.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she said, unconvinced. She considered looking for him but realized it would serve no real purpose except to satisfy her need to – in her mind at least – do something beside sit in their suite. But the reality was that a lone American strolling through the Australian bush in complete darkness hardly constituted a competent rescue party. More likely, David would come home while she was busy getting lost in the wilds.

Laura went back to her room, firm in the decision that she would not panic until morning.

When the room’s digital clock read 7:00 a.m., Laura officially began to panic.

2

‘The call will be put through in a moment, ma’am.’

‘Thank you.’

Laura sat back and stared at the telephone. With the time difference, it was nearly nine p.m. yesterday in Boston and she wondered if T. C. was going to be home yet. His shift normally ended at a little past eight and she knew that he often stayed a lot later.

Laura’s hands trembled, her face and eyes harried and swollen from the torment of the seemingly endless night she had just endured. She glanced out the window and saw the sun shining. The bright rays and the clock beside her bed were the only clear signs that last night had turned into today, that the night had indeed given way to morning. But for Laura, the night continued, her heart squeezed in a nightmare that would not move on.

She closed her eyes for a moment and remembered the second time David Baskin had entered her life. It was three weeks after their initial encounter at the Boston Pops, three weeks in which their short conversation constantly jabbed at the back of her mind like a dull ache, never all-consuming but still bothersome enough to make its presence felt whenever she tried to forget about it.

Subconsciously (or so she would claim), Laura began to skim through a few of the many articles about him. Though the press could not shovel enough praise about David’s talent, sportsmanship and positive influence on the game, Laura was more fascinated (well, not fascinated, she told herself; more like interested) by the few sprinkles of information about his upbringing, his academic prowess at the University of Michigan, his time spent in Europe as a Rhodes Scholar and his selfless work with the handicapped. She found herself feeling oddly guilty about the way she had treated him, as though she had somehow to even the score or stay forever in his debt. It might be nice to see him again, she told herself, and maybe just apologize so he would see that she wasn’t really a cold person.

That was when she began to accept invitations to functions and gala parties that he was likely to attend. She, of course, would never admit that David Baskin had anything to do with her social calendar. It was just coincidence, she would claim. Svengali needed her exposure at these events and if David Baskin happened to be there, well, life sometimes works that way.

But to her inward dismay, David only made token appearances, smiling broadly as people gathered around him to shake his hand and slap his back. Laura thought she noted a wince or small look of repulsion on his face as these phonies reached out to touch him, but it may just have been her imagination.

David never approached her, never so much as glanced her way. Finally, Laura decided to do something truly childish. Spotting him by the bar at one such event, she took what has been termed by teenage girls as a ‘strategic walk’ – i.e., a casual stroll where she would ‘accidentally’ bump into him. It worked. He spotted her. He smiled cordially at her (or was there something else in the smile? like mockery?) and then moved on without a word. Her heart sank.

Laura returned to her office, fuming. She felt embarrassed at her behavior, upset she was acting like a high-school girl with a crush on the football captain. She could not understand why she felt this need to confront him again. Was it simply because he had bested her, made her reconsider her normal behavior and defense mechanisms? Or was there an attraction – albeit dormant – causing this static electricity in her brain? True, he was not bad-looking, rather handsome in a non-conventional way. His face and body were dark and strong like a lumberjack on a lite beer commercial. His green eyes were warm and friendly, his thick hair groomed short. Actually, he was quite attractive, more natural and real-looking than the supposedly gorgeous male models she used to work with.

But even if Baskin wasn’t a typical, self-centered, immature jock, he was nonetheless a jock, hero-worshipped by adolescents of all ages, a man who played a child’s game as a career. Undoubtedly, he was playboy-athlete, surrounded by airy bimbos who sought the spotlight and wanted to get on television with the other wives in the stands. And Laura wanted nothing less than to be considered another bimbo, another conquest by the immortal Celtic great. Clearly, David Baskin was the very antithesis of what she would want in a man, if indeed she had been interested in a relationship at all. Right now, there was no room for a man. Svengali was her ambition, her life-long dream and partner.

Laura tilted her chair back and put her feet on her desk. Her right leg shook as it always did when she was somehow uptight or in deep thought. Her father had the same annoying habit. They both drove people crazy because the movement was no mere quiver – it was a full-fledged shake. When she or her dad really got that right leg going, the chair, the desk, the very room would vibrate under the leg’s tenacious assault. For those in the area, it was an unnerving spectacle, one that Laura had tried unsuccessfully to stop herself from doing.

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