It’s unusual to find fiction about a vigilante sting. Even rarer to find a narrative that adopts a tone of criticism toward the person executing the sting.
Reporter Wendy Tynes works for NTC News as a salaried anchorwoman (and, by all accounts, vigilante).
Her TV show, Caught in the Act is based on entrapping suspects for entertainment.
The show’s team create fake social media profiles whereby adults pretend to be children, and then work to engage other adults online in sexual conversation, thus entrapping them.
The entrapped adults are then ‘stung’ via livestream, broadcast to millions of viewers watching the popular television channel. Never mind ‘innocent until proven guilty’, or ‘contempt of court’. This is simply giving the public what they want, isn’t it?
Wendy is riding on the wave of a series of successful ‘stings’, pleasing both viewers/ consumers, and her bosses at the TV station.
This time, however, it appears that things have gone too far.
The accused man (Dan, a social worker) whose ‘sting’ is live streamed for entertainment, subsequently has to leave his job, flee his home, and hide his identity. He is slandered, ostracized and physically attacked by an angry community.
Worst of all for Wendy, she has an instinct that something is off about the sting.
Dan makes contact with her. His life is in tatters , he wants Wendy to know the truth. He is an innocent man. The vigilante case is ultimately thrown out of court, and Wendy, confused as to what to believe, agrees to meet with Dan.
As a result of the failed conviction, and the subsequent embarrassment to the television station, Wendy loses her job. She is left with a steely journalistic determination to get to the truth of what happened – at whatever cost.
Unfortunately, a police officer, by the name of Ed, has other ideas.
His son was groomed, and submitted naked images of himself to a male online. It’s unclear who this male is, but Ed believes it to be Dan.
Wendy makes it clear that she wants no part in any mob justice, and distances herself from Ed’s plans for vengeance.
The police officer, annoyed that the vigilante case against Dan has been thrown out of court, and seeking justice, decides to bug Wendy’s vehicle and follow her to the meeting, thus giving him access to Dan.
Wendy watches in horror as Dan is ‘shot’ before her eyes. In an elaborate plot, Dan’s body is removed from the scene, and the case becomes a murder investigation based on Wendys testimony, with Ed as the prime suspect.
As a result of Dan’s disappearance, police begin an investigation. When a missing local teenager, seventeen-year-old Marcia McWaid’s mobile phone is discovered in the dead social workers room, things take another interesting turn. Perhaps Dan is guilty after all.
Nonetheless, Wendy maintains a nagging gut feeling that the social worker is innocent, and the events that unfolded were part of an elaborate set-up. With an unwavering duty to uncover the truth, Wendy continues her investigation, even when the safety of her family becomes compromised.
From the outset, Coben’s work is punchy and fast-paced. As the story unravels, the lives of multiple characters intertwine.
The narrative twists and turns as the reader is thrown from one theory to another. Red herrings lead nowhere, and the reader is engaged to the very last moment, unsure of who or what is behind these crimes.
The book offers a bold insight into the dangers of vigilante-style operations, and raises questions as to the morality of community justice and live ‘stings’. The reader is also called to question the damaging part that modern media play in a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ approach, and to what extent hysteria can ever play a part in creating a safer world.
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