Harlan Coben’s Shelter

There’s less gore than usual and the plot is even crazier. But the charm – reminiscent of early teen hits, like The Goonies, that the ’80s brought while you waited for John Hughes to graduate – is still an unexpected bonus.

Follow the story of Mickey Bolitar after the death of his father leads him to start a new life in suburban New Jersey. When another new student disappears, Mickey finds himself tangled in a web of secrets. With the help of two new friends, Spoon and Ema, they reveal a dark underground that may hold the answers to decades of disappearances.

Jaden Michael (last seen in 2021 as teenage NBA star turned activist Colin Kaepernick in the TV series Colin in Black & White) is Mickey. His combination of quiet confidence and gentleness, even while grieving after having just lost his father and almost losing his mother in a car accident, drew you to him and gives you someone to hold on to when the rollercoaster story throws you off a path. side to side.

After the accident, a frustrated Mickey lives with his aunt Shira (Constance Zimmer) in his father’s hometown of Kasselton, New Jersey, while waiting for his mother to be released from the facility where she is being treated for depression. (In the book, she is a drug addict; perhaps this was changed to make things more palatable to television audiences, which are often broader than literary audiences.)

On his first day of high school, he befriends Ashley (Samantha Bugliaro), another new student. We see her being secretly photographed by a teacher; The next day, she disappeared. Soon, a small group of Scooby-Doos gather around Mickey to help him discover her whereabouts. There’s eccentric hacker Spoon (Adrian Greensmith, who gives a stellar performance, even if it seems to come from a more comedic film) and fellow social outcast Ema (Abby Corrigan, who contributes to the ambience ’80s ephemera looks like a cross between Ally Sheedy from The Breakfast Club and Winona Ryder).

But they also have to deal with all the other strange things that come with a horror movie set in suburban New Jersey:
school bullies; a mean and racist local cop; a boy who disappeared 27 years ago on the same day as Ashley; a web of stories, including one between a bad cop and Mickey’s aunt; and the history teacher who taught Mickey’s father, Brad, and now spends his free time reading websites about the missing boy. Elsewhere, there are also increasing sapphic vibrations.

Oh, and let’s not forget the massive gothic mansion Brad finds himself trapped in, after which he’s “never quite the same again.” It is inhabited by a creepy old woman called the Bat Lady (Tovah Feldshuh). There is a tombstone in the garden dedicated to “ES, the children’s lost childhood” and during Mickey’s first meeting with the Bat Lady, she learns his name and tells him that his father is still alive.

Is she crazy or is she a hallucination created by our fiery hero? Is she at the center of what seems to be an increasing mystery? Is this simply the visible tip of a giant, mysterious iceberg beneath the suburban surface?

Mickey keeps hearing, in inexplicable places, the song that was playing right before the car crash, adding to the hallucinogenic feeling. There’s the repeating butterfly pattern, the tattoos that should have faded but didn’t, a gun in Ashley’s pocket, a thick layer of more subtle clues that were clearly clues (Polaroid, baseball cap, locker magnets) and many secrets that have yet to be revealed. by everyone you meet.

There’s also an emerging Holocaust storyline that better start attracting attention early on if it doesn’t want to start seeming incredibly tasteless. But let’s have faith.