When Trouble Finds 'The Innocent'

Many mystery writers create intrigue and suspense by inventing far-out serial killers, or international terrorists who threaten national security.

But best-selling novelist Harlan Coben gets his readers' hearts racing by putting seemingly normal characters in situations that go very wrong.

"I write about people like you and me who are just living their lives and wrong still seems to find them," he explains.

His latest page-turner is called, "The Innocent."

It's the story of an ex-con gone straight, working hard to make his way in the world. He's happily married, about to be a father and to move to suburbia when his life is shattered. He gets a cell phone photo of his wife with another man in a hotel room.

Coben has four kids, 11 and under, and his wife is a pediatrician.

He tells The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith that despite being a successful author, "I have to still drive my kids to school. I have to take care of them. I was throwing the ball with one yesterday. I'm going to go to his Little League game, if it's not raining, tonight. That's great. It keeps me in that whole world and lets me remember the normal guy, so I can write him."

He does his writing close to home.

"I usually go to, like, a local coffee shop or the library. I like a little white noise when I write, but not as much white noise as my kids. So I usually go someplace. It makes me concentrate harder. You look like you're being a jerk writing in a coffee shop, but that's where I work best."

Coben candidly admits he's not as big on research as many other fiction writers. "I'm more from the, 'Hum a few bars and fake it' genre," he says to Smith. "Tell you the truth, I do research, but I'm really more concerned with making sure that I am holding you hostage and gripping you. The research has to come secondary. Sometimes a writer uses research as an excuse not to write, not to grip, to tell you cute factoids. I don't want to do that. I want it do it with the story."

So it's no accident that he has a lot of characters who are pediatricians, like his wife, Coben points out.

He adds that he wants "to grab you. The first sentence of the book is, 'You never meant to kill him.' I want to get you right in. I want to grab you on page one by the throat and not let you go until it's all over."

Coben says he knows the plot when he writes his first sentence: "I know the beginning and I know the ending. I know that last twist. I know how I'm going to surprise you. But I have no idea how I'm going to get there.

"I compare it to traveling. Here we are in New York to L.A. I may take route 80, may go via the Suez Canal or stop in Tokyo, but I pretty much always end up in L.A."

To read an excerpt of "The Innocent," click here.