No mortal word

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This article covers the novel; For the article about the film of the same name, see Keine Sterbenswort (Film) .

No mortal word (orig .: Tell No One , literally: Don't tell anyone ) is a thriller by the US author Harlan Coben , which he published in 2001.

General

After Cobens - up to this point in seven parts - Myron Bolitar is No One his first standalone novel. It is alternately written in first person (from the point of view of Dr. David Beck) and from an authorial perspective. Similar to the books about Myron Bolitar, No Death Word has a complicated plot that is only fully clarified on the last pages (in this case even on the very last page).

content

The riddle

Thirteen years after their first kiss, Dr. David Beck and his wife Elizabeth that same anniversary as a newly married couple at the lake, which belonged to Beck's family - after all, that was where that first kiss took place. But that night the tragedy happens: You are attacked by a stranger, Elizabeth is kidnapped, Beck is badly injured and left behind because he is believed to be dead.
A few weeks later the terrible truth: Elizabeth fell into the hands of the serial killer KillRoy - he is caught and convicted of several murders; however, the Elizabeth Beck case is a little too complicated to actually be officially attached to it.
Eight years after these incidents, Beck is still not ready to get his life under control. And his world shakes when he receives a series of mysterious emails suggesting that Elizabeth is still alive. As if that wasn't shocking enough, the FBI is suddenly on his heels, because two bodies were discovered at the lake at the same time. The men carried a key that turned out to be Elizabeth's locker key. In this locker there are pictures that show Elizabeth with clear signs of physical abuse.
Beck, who was unable to explain how he actually survived that night due to partial amnesia, is suddenly charged with the murder of Elizabeth. The two men found, so the prosecution, were his accomplices whom he wanted to get rid of. The motive: a hefty life insurance policy for his wife. When Beck also fled, the police were certain of his guilt.

The complex investigation of the case

In fact, Elizabeth is still alive. Since she sends her husband hidden messages, he flees from the police in order to be able to meet her. However, they are both innocent, even if Elizabeth is also accused of murder in the course of the investigation. The murder of Brandon Scope.
It is this murder case that hit the headlines a few months before Elizabeth's supposed death that everything traces back to. Elizabeth worked for Brandon, son of billionaire Griffin Scope. Brandon worked for people in need, Elizabeth worked in his administration. But she found out: the philanthropist Brandon was involved in all sorts of dark businesses, such as the prostitution of minors. As soon as Brandon realized that Elizabeth smelled a fuse, he beat her up as a warning - hence the traces of abuse.
But then Brandon is surprisingly murdered. But from whom? Hoyt Parker, Elizabeth's father, was the cop who handled the case and was immediately convinced it was Elizabeth and was acting in self-defense. In order to protect her, he attached the crime to an innocent petty crook. Elizabeth would not allow this and fabricated an alibi for the defendant, so that Brandon's death remained unexplained.
Griffin did not want to leave his son's death unpunished and set two men to kill Elizabeth and Beck, convinced that Elizabeth was the murderer. Hoyt, one of the corrupt cops who worked with Griffin, got wind of it and rescued Elizabeth from the clutches of the men he then murdered. As a police officer familiar with the KillRoy case, he led the media to believe that Elizabeth had murdered Elizabeth - Hoyt "identified" the body of a stranger as his daughter in her stead while Elizabeth went into hiding. Griffin was not suspicious, having ordered the two henchmen to run away after the murder.
But then these two men are found when a bear appears with one arm in its mouth, which leads to closer investigations. In addition to the photos, the locker key brings another surprise: there you can find the murder weapon in the Brandon Scope case, clearly Beck's pistol. So did Elizabeth commit the murder of Brandon after all?
Her father Hoyt, meanwhile repentant for all his atrocities, is convinced of this to the end and lies to Griffin Scope when he is sure that the FBI is listening. He pretends to be Brandon's murderer to relieve Elizabeth once again and for good. His alleged motive: revenge for the mistreatment of his daughter. Hoyt then shoots Griffin, for his part in revenge, just before the police can intervene.
But Hoyt did not ignorantly protect Elizabeth. It was David Beck who murdered Brandon because Brandon broke into her home to silence Elizabeth for good. Elizabeth wasn't home, just Beck, who shot Brandon in self-defense.

useful information

• The book was filmed with great success in France under the title Ne le dis à personne (English: No mortal word ); the novel was moved to France, the personal names changed.
• The success of the novel in Germany led to the fact that the following books by Cobens - in order to remind of the title Kein Sterbenswort - were almost exclusively translated according to the pattern no + residual title . There followed namely no sign of life , no second chance , no bad dream and no peace to the dead ; however, the English titles have nothing to do with it.
• Due to the appearance of the lawyer Hester Crimstein, this novel is loosely linked to the Myron-Bolitar series, since Crimstein also appears there frequently.