Suspense

Very well written. The story was a bit out there, kinda far fetched, but maybe some of that stuff could really be happening ...but what a confluence of events. A good read overall, if you can suspend your disbelief of it all actually happening. ( )

This was my introduction to Coban’s writing and I enjoyed the page turning storytelling. It was very quick and very short chapters which kept the plot moving well.

The premise started incredibly well with Simon’s chase for his daughter hooked on drugs. I picked it up and didn’t want to put it down. I figured some things pretty early in the story regarding the main plot line.

The side plot line which will intersect with the main storyline, as one could guess, was a bit of a mess story wise. I am not going into spoiler territory, but several times, I asked myself- “what is this?” in a non positive way. The side story also doesn’t have a real conclusion, so this whole thing becomes a plot device.

As for the main story, it too just ends in a “well, that’s convenient” sort of way. I was hooked for most of the book, but the end was a major let down for me.

I will try another of his books, but not too quickly. ( )

I always enjoy Harlan Coben books, although this was not one of his best. Still, with a little suspension of belief, it was interesting with several plot twists and a bit of humor. I especially like the name of a tattoo parlor, called "Tattoos while you wait". And there was a character from a different book, Hester Crimstein, who is pretty funny.

But the book overall was serious; a young woman with a promising future goes off to college and fairly quickly becomes a down and out drug addict, and disappears into the underworld seemingly abandoned by her family, but not totally by her father. They tried to help her several times, getting therapy, etc, but nothing worked. Her mother felt that they could not help her, that she needed to help herself. However, as in many of Coben's works, things are not always what they seem.

An entertaining, wild ride with surprises galore.
( )

Rounded down from 2.5 because I can’t really round this up to 3 stars.

Marking spoilers because this goes into characters and major plot points.

This started interesting enough, but then quickly veers between the mundane and slowly inching the story along. This book probably could have been 100 less pages. The mystery doesn’t really progress until the last 150 pages, and everything before then is a relative slow burn to get through clues or Simon lamenting the condition of his wife. Which gets old pretty fast.

Usually for books like these I won’t nit pick characters as much if the story/pacing/etc, but I didn’t get much from the story and the characters didn’t help improve things. Everyone is pretty flat or some variation of “badass guy/gal” so it didn’t feel like there was a wide cast other than they all had different names. The detective could have been interesting since it kept hinting at a past, but only ever centered on how she missed having sex with her now deceased lover. It felt like the author tried so hard to make Simon seem appealing or a good guy that it became overbearing. Multiple times there would be a monologue that didn’t have much to do what was currently going on, it got to a point I was waiting for the author to go on a rant about why kicking puppies is wrong just to make sure it was clear why Simon is the stand up guy to root for (but I ended up not caring about anyways, because he ended up being pretty one dimensional as well). The two murder for hires aren’t fleshed out beyond having shared trauma, so they feel flat and just a plot device when they could have been more developed and potentially nuanced characters (particularly Ash).

Another missed opportunity, I feel, is the mother. She is MIA the entire book until the end. Considering her role later in the book, it would have been an interesting source of conflict and character development if she had been more present and active through the book, but instead she is taken out relatively early and contributes nothing in the story just to come back in just in time for an over dramatic ‘twist ending’.

The cult angle could have been more interesting and feel less tacked on if it had any sort of presence in the story. It is only mentioned a handful of times, and one short chapter is actually on the compound. As with a lot of things in this book, it needed a lot more background info and development. There seems very little motive other than the obvious (avoiding for spoiler purposes). It would have been interesting to see the leaders and their motives/drives further realized in the book other than the brief two paragraphs (where they have virtually no dialogue) they are in out of the entire book.

Overall, fairly disappointed considering I really enjoyed the last book I read from this author. Maybe this one is just a dud for me and the next one will be better. ( )