Deal Breaker was published by Dell Publishing in 1995, introducing Myron Bolitar — a former college basketball star turned sports agent, working out of a cramped office in New Jersey with his best friend Win (Windsor Horne Lockwood III, a violent, aristocratic sociopath who serves as Myron’s muscle and moral counterweight). The novel establishes what would become one of the most successful mystery series of the next three decades.
Myron’s newest client is Christian Steele, a young quarterback about to be drafted into the NFL. Christian’s ex-girlfriend Kathy — the daughter of the dean of a local college — disappeared eighteen months ago and was presumed dead. Then a magazine featuring her picture arrives, suggesting she may be alive. Myron’s investigation takes him from the locker rooms and luxury boxes of professional sports into a world of pornography, sexual exploitation, and murder.
Coben’s style is established from the first page: fast, funny, driven by dialogue, and characterized by a voice that balances wisecracks with genuine emotional engagement. Myron is a good man in a corrupt world, and his decency — his refusal to abandon people, his insistence on finding the truth even when it costs him — provides the moral center that the plots, with their revelations of human depravity, constantly threaten to undermine.
Collecting Deal Breaker
First edition (Dell Publishing, New York, 1995): Mass-market paperback original (no hardcover first edition). Later hardcover editions exist.
Market values:
- First printing (Dell paperback): $20–$60
- First hardcover edition (later): $15–$40
- Signed copies: $30–$80