Tell No One

One of the key themes in Coben’s novel is the cross-section of people from different strands of society. The two protagonists, pediatrician David Beck and attorney Elizabeth Beck, are representative of a hard-working, socially-conscious class of white, young professionals living in New York at the turn of the millennium. They grew up and met in the same middle class neighborhood. When they are separated as a result of complications from their involvement in Brandon Scope’s death, they find their way back to each other, through their encounters with people of different races and classes.

While Coben describes David and Elizabeth’s background acutely and makes them fully rounded characters, offering details such as Elizabeth’s “pure concentration” (109) and prowess on the tennis court and giving voice to David’s deadpan sense of humor, the ethnic others they encounter largely conform to racial stereotypes. David, the part-time first-person narrator, admits that he is “not above making quick judgements based on appearance—or, to use a more politically current term, racial profiling” and proceeds to do so in his hospital encounters with drugdealer Tyrese who addresses him with “the ghetto glare” (160) that David would expect from someone of Tyrese’s race and class.