Win: A Fascinating Character to Hate

 

WIN (2021)

By Harlan Coben

Grand Central Publishing, 371 pages.

★★★★

 

 

 

Did you ever watch a show or read a book in which you find the main character utterly despicable, yet that individual fascinates you? You want to look away, but you can't. The namesake character of Harlan Coben's new novel Win is like that. “Win” is short for Windsor Horne Lockwood III and the numbers behind the name say it all. He's as rich as Croesus, uses his money lavishly, has contempt for his social inferiors, went to Duke, and is a martial arts expert who enjoys violence. About all he and I share in common is that he finds hipsters faintly ridiculous and he doesn't countenance violence against women. (Win is, however, a sex addict willing to use a dark web app to locate women and pay fortune to bed them.)

 

He's also a self-appointed vigilante with a sense of justice and the money to get him out of scrapes like how a suitcase with his initials showed up at a crime scene. His philosophy is pretty much summed by this assertion: “People buy into the ‘everyone is equal’ rationale we Americans brilliantly sold throughout our esteemed history, though lately more and more get what has always been obvious: Money tips all scales.” Says the guy with his own jet, helicopter, a chauffeur/accomplice named Kabir, a suite in the Dakota, and a family that hangs masterpieces on the wall, though someone long ago nicked a Picasso and a Vermeer.

 

Hate Win yet? Maybe this will make you feel better. When we first come in on him, he is in the process of putting college basketball coach Teddy Lyons on the permanent disabled list, as he's a serial abuser, including of minor children. Or maybe you'll like Win's comments on a hipster bar frequented by those who:

 

… were trying so hard not to appear mainstream that they simply redefined the mainstream. The men had hipster glasses; … asymmetrical facial hair; flimsy scarfs draped loosely around their necks; suspenders on strategically ripped jeans; retro concert tees that struggled to be ironic; man buns or a potpourri of awful hats, such as the cable knit slouchy beanie, the Newsie flat cap and of course, the carefully tilted fedora (unwritten hipster rule: only one guy per table can wear the fedora at a time); and of course, boots could be high or low or any hue but somehow you’d still label them hipster boots. The female of the species offered up a wider range–secondhand vintage pickups, flannels, cardigans, unmatching layers, acid wash, fishnets– the rule being nothing mainstream, which again makes them just mainstream with a desperation stench.

 

Win’s official task is to help a police friend find out what happened to the Jane Street Six, a group of 60s anarchists who failed to blow up an apartment, but spooked a bus driver who veered over the side of a bridge. That cold case reopened when a murdered recluse who lived in a penthouse is found murdered and is identified as one of the members of the Jane Street Six. Win is useful because his methods are often the sort that would land a cop in court. It's also a bit personal, as Win’s cousin Patricia was kidnapped when she was younger and held in a "Hut of Horrors” until she escaped. Maybe there's a connection with the Jane Street Six, and maybe not, but at least six girls were killed in the woods near where Patricia was held and Win wants to find their murderer.

 

Win embarks on parallel manhunts that place him in harm’s way many times–just as he likes it – and he has pursuers of various ilk. Among them is Leo Staunch, the heir to his father's organized crime syndicate. Things are personal for the Staunches as well; young Sophie Staunch was a casualty when the bus plunged over the rail in 1973. Leo claims he wants Wyn to help him locate Jane Street Six leader Arlo Sugarman in order to forgive him and save him from being murdered by other family members. Leo makes it clear, though, that his is something stronger than a request.

 

As you could probably tell, Coben’s prose isn’t the next coming of Dickens, but he can spin a good thriller. Win’s probe takes him down many corridors–some blind alleyways and some superhighways–and forces him to shovel some serious Lockwood family dirt, reopen art heist leads, solicit a few almost-deathbed confessions, plumb the dark web, give his private conveyances a serious workout, threaten bodily harm to a lawyer, and rekindle distressing American history. On top of all of this, he has to stay alive.

 

Maybe, just maybe, Win will also have to admit that sometimes money doesn't tip all scales. At a poker table at which all the players are amoral, it's hard to tell who holds the winning hand.

 

Rob Weir