I Will Find You by Harlan Corben Book Review

I wasn’t familiar with Harlan Coben before I picked up this book, but he’s apparently such a household name that him as the author is advertised more than the actual title. And you know? If his other books are anything like this one, maybe that’s justifiable.

I found I Will Find You because I was looking for a good fugitive book. Our hero is a man named David Burroughs. Five years ago, he found his three-year-old son Matthew beaten to death and covered in his own blood in his bedroom in the middle of the night, and he is blamed for the murder because at the time, someone apparently saw him bury a bloody baseball bat in his yard, and the opposition’s lawyers argued he ended up in some kind of state that made him not in control of himself. His wife Cheryl left him and is now with someone else. And for the past five years, David’s been locked up, serving a life sentence, and the thing is, he’s not really determined to escape and find who did this like all the other badass crime heroes we read and watch. The big thing is, his son is dead. His son is never coming back. That’s all there is to it for him.

He’s spent his life just waiting for death and having no true life. Then one day, he has a visitor. First time ever, since he failed to renew his yearly desire to have no visitors. It’s his sister-in-law Rachel. She was a big-time journalist who recently lost her job in a high-profile case when she was too desperate to get to a source, and it had a really bad impact. She comes because she says she came across some recent photos, and one of them looks exactly like his kid but five years older. 

With some extra help, David ends up escaping, with brand new purpose to find out if it’s true and reunite with his back-from-the-dead son. Meanwhile we have some pretty enthusiastic FBI agents out to bring him back.

Let me start this review by saying five years is a very long time to be in a vegetative state. I’ve read other books involving characters locked up for a long time, and one of them involved prisoners in solitary confinement and getting hallucinations, feeling like they lost a part of themselves, after only 24 hours in the pitch black. David discusses with us how in prison you have to shut down parts of your mind that ask you to feel joy, like fond memories of good food, in order to keep your sanity. I can only imagine. So right away, knowing he would escape somehow, we’re on board right away. The big question is if our emotions will be triggered, if it will be fun running with him or not.

The biggest letdown for me in this super fun book was the big prison escape. There are sections in the escape that are exciting, but I found it to be kind of unrealistic, even though there are relationships between some of the characters involved that would make them understanding of David’s plight. I wish David could’ve found a different, more independent way out. You’ll know what I mean if and when you read it. There’s also a pretty big giveaway in the story early on that you’ll also know about. But the main point of this book was to entertain even if it wasn’t perfect in the storytelling department. And on that note, it fits the bill.

So those were the main flaws. The best part of this book, besides the enjoyable chase sequences, was the connections between the characters and the back stories of what led to David’s conviction. We learn why these people did what they did as we gather clues as to not exactly where Matthew is, but the reason David was set up. And the fact these stories are mostly plausible adds a chilling layer to the whole story. People have been framed for crimes before. 

I Will Find You is a cat-and-mouse game that you’d have to be quite the sourpuss not to enjoy. It’s thrilling, infuriating, complex in its circumstances of the murder without making us lost, and not too long. If you’re a fan of the Harrison Ford movie The Fugitive, you’ll devour this.

My grade: 4 stars out of 5