The innocent door Ian McEwan

Coben, Harlan. The Innocent. London: Orion Books Ltd, 2005. First Edition 2005.

The book is about a man called Matt Hunter. One night Matt’s best friend gets into a fight, Matt tries to help his friend but accidently kills a man in the process. Matt is convicted of manslaughter and send to prison.

The story picks back up 9 years after his release from prison. Matt lives with his pregnant wife Olivia and has an average job. Then all hell breaks loose, Matt start gets an inexplicable photo from Olivia’s phone showing Olivia with different man in a hotel room. Also a strange man starts trailing Matt. The man trailing Matt turns up dead after a few days and all fingers are pointing at Matt since he already has a murder under his name. Also a beloved nun from Matt’s former high school is murdered. When Matt confronts Olivia about the photo that was send to him, she reveals that she isn’t who she says she is. It turns out her name isn’t Oliva and she used to be a stripper under the name Candi Cane. She got caught up in a crime and ran. She faked her death and became Olivia.

There’s one thing that she couldn’t make disappear and that was her daughter. All these years later she tries to get in contact with her daughter. A policeman named found out she was still alive and went after Olivia. The policeman got mysteriously murdered. A private investigator named Loren Muse slowly starts finding the connections between the murder of the policeman, the murder of the nun and the murder of the man trailing Matt and finds out the truth about Olivia. Matt and Olivia run from their home because they are both wanted by the police. They go to the place where Olivia used to strip. They meet up with Olivia’s former best friend, Kimmy. Kimmy reveals that she was the one who set it all up, she took the blame for ‘Candi’s’ death and wanted revenge. She pulls out a gun and threatens Olivia but after admitting her crimes, she kills herself. The story ends with Olivia meeting her daughter who had already found her a long time ago. It turned out the babysitter of Matt’s nephews Kyra, was Olivia’s daughter.

The main character is Matt Hunter. In the beginning of the story he is a young student. He has always been a good kid, but after he spends a long time in prison for killing someone he is a changed man. His time in prison has not only taught him to defend himself and be tough, it has also told him not to take the things we love for granted. He loves his wife Olivia very much and even after she told Matt that she isn’t who she said she is, he still loved her and wanted to be with her. Matt is not a violent person but he wants to protect the people he loves no matter what.

Another main character is Olivia, Matt Hunter’s wife. In the beginning of the story she seems like the perfect wife, a nice girl from a good family who has a good job and went to a good school. But it’s not what it seems, somewhere along the way, she reveals that she used to be a stripper in Las Vegas and she got into a big scandal. She faked her death and started a new life. She loves Matt so much that she doesn’t want to tell him about her past because she thinks Matt might leave her if she did.

Another main character is Loren Muse. She’s a private investigator. When she was fourteen years old, her father killed herself and Loren blames her mother. This caused her to rebel and start drinking, doing drugs, etc. She became a real ‘problem student’. She got send from her high school to a catholic school. This is the reason she was asked to investigate the murder of a nun from her former school.

As an adult she has a really low self-esteem and self-worth. She still lives with her mom and never found the right partner. Throughout the story she starts getting more and more into her job and she is determined to solve the mystery. She knows Matt Hunter because she went to the same elementary school as he did. While investigating she doesn’t know whether she can trust Matt or not. Her instinct does tell her that Matt isn’t a bad person.

The story is set in present time. I think the author has chosen this particular time because mobile phones quite a big part in the story and they haven’t been around for very long. Also the technology the police uses in the book couldn’t have existed in any other time.

The story mainly takes place in Irvington, New Jersey, USA. This is where Matt grew up and where he lives with Olivia. The climate is not very warm but not cold either. It’s rains a few times in the story but that is not important to the story. I think the author chose this location because he lives in New Jersey himself which means he knows a lot about the area and he can describe it very well.

The first important event is where Matt accidently kills someone and goes to prison. Then the story skips 9 years. The second important event is when Matt gets an inexplicable photo from his wife’s phone. The important event after that is when the person trailing Matt gets killed and Matt becomes the prime suspect. After that another important event is when Olivia tells Matt that she isn’t who she says she is. That’s when you find out that all she told about herself is a lie and that she used to be a stripper in La Vegas when she was really and that she faked her death trying to run from a scandal. At the end Olivia kills a man called Dollinger who was after her for a long time trying to get a certain tape, this was also a very important event. The final important event is when Oliva meets her daughter for the first time.

The story begins at the beginning.

The story is told from the perspective of an omniscient narrator.

The author chose the title ‘The Innocent’ because the main character, Matt gets blamed for heavy crimes multiple times that he didn’t commit, he is Innocent. One of the crimes he did commit but it was an accident.

The subject is crime

The author wants to make clear to the reader that you shouldn’t take everything and everyone around you for granted because everything can change in a heartbeat.

I though there were a lot of events that I didn’t see coming, plot twists. For example when Olivia told the truth about her past. There were also some pretty intense events like fights and shootings.

I thought the characters were all very realistic, I think they could all be real people. I couldn’t really identify myself with any of the characters, they were all very different to me. I liked the main character because he had an interesting backstory and he was very interesting as a person.

I liked the event where Olivia tells the truth about her past because it blew my mind and it made the book a lot more interesting. The way the book ended was ok but not very original, the baddies got killed and everyone lived happily ever after.

The use of language was not very special, I didn’t have to look up any words to understand the context.