Early tension fizzles in ”Innocent”

If you want to learn how to write a best-selling thriller, look at Harlan Coben’s newest book, “The Innocent.”

But that’s not necessarily a compliment. “The Innocent” is such a by-the-numbers exercise that it serves more as a primer on the structure of thrillers than it does as entertainment.

This is how it’s done: First, set up, in a prologue, the background event that will color the main character or the story line.

Here, Matt Hunter is in a bar; he tries to break up a fight, things get out of hand and in the melee he accidentally kills someone. Matt goes to prison, gets out, but his life is severely limited by his status as an ex-con. Fast-forward a specific amount of time; in “The Innocent,” it’s nine years.

Second, introduce characters living worlds away from each other – both literally and figuratively – and who are grappling with something that seems a bit off.

In Reno, an aging stripper is approached by a young girl, seeking information about the stripper mom, now dead, who gave her up for adoption. In New Jersey, a dedicated but emotionally flawed inspector is asked by the principal of the Catholic high school she attended years ago to look into the past of one of the school’s most-beloved teachers – a nun who, it appears upon examination after her death, had breast implants.

Also in New Jersey, Matt receives a brief video on his cell phone in which it appears his pregnant, devoted wife is having an affair.

Third, use short chapters to braid the major strands together in intriguing ways – the dead nun had made a call to Matt’s sister’s home, Matt discovers his wife has been searching the Internet for news articles based in Reno, andthe man on the cell phone with Matt’s wife is from Reno.

From there, it’s just connecting the dots for 300 pages with dead bodies turning up, attempts on the lives of the heroes and long chat sessions in which the investigators and Matt go over the facts and put the pieces together.

Add a break or two for the investigators (there’s a cop whose hobby is the history of strippers, for crying out loud), a couple of allies who turn out to be working against the good guys and a happy ending (though in the case of “The Innocent,” it’s a bit too happy).

All this isn’t to say “The Innocent” is a total loss. There is some real tension early on, witty dialogue and a likable main character who has worked hard to overcome the hand he was dealt in that bar fight years ago.

But the ending is too tidy and the mystery’s resolution too odd. And it all feels a little “been there.”