Two by Harlan Coben

Coben is a solid mystery writer with tricky plots and a regular cast of characters that reappear in many of his books. So it felt like a lucky find to run across one of his paperbacks in the trading library at the resort on Crete. The Woods revolves around a cold case involving 4 teenagers who disappeared into the area surrounding a co-ed summer camp and presumably all died. Except two of them were never found. One of the missing ones was  the sister of our protagonist, Paul Copeland, who also happens to be the county prosecutor in Essex County, NJ . Old memories are stirred up when a murdered man with Paul's card in his pockets, is tentatively identified by Paul as the other missing teen from that night long ago. Does that mean his sister could also be alive?  And did we mention that Paul had been one of the counselors in charge at the camp the night the murders and disappearances took place, and that he hasn't seen or heard from the girl he sneaked off with that night in all these years, until now?    

Long Lost is one I listened to on our travels to and from Bend a couple weeks ago. Myron Bolitar, sports agent (and a regular fixture of many Coben novels) gets a 5 am wake-up call from a long-lost love, Teresa Collins, inviting him to Paris for a few fun filled days, “'Think about it,” she went on. “The City of Lights. We could make love all night long'...What’s wrong, Terese?'... 'Nothing’s wrong.  I want to spend a romantic, sensual, fantasy-filled weekend with you in Paris.'Another swallow. 'I haven’t heard from you in, what, seven years?" But indeed something is very wrong. Her husband is missing and eventually turns up--dead. Events start to make it look like the daughter she thought died years ago in a car wreck might not be dead. But it's oh so much more complicated than this. It's all about a plot to grow terrorists who can go anywhere because they look just like...well, read it and find out.
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Run Away

I have read and blogged about a number of Harlan Coben's thrillers (search his name in my blog). They are always rich with well-drawn characters and often very twisty plots.
Here is the  basic story line from Booklist:
"Coben, once again, shows a well-constructed, lucky life blown open by fate. Financial analyst Simon Greene and his wife, a pediatrician, are well-off Manhattanites with three children. The chasm in their lives was caused by their 21-year-old daughter, Paige, being seduced into drugs and a vagrant lifestyle by a man 10 years older. Simon discovers Paige panhandling in Central Park one day, tries to talk with her, punches her slimy boyfriend, and is arrested and charged with assault. This starts the suspense spiral of the book, which only grows more tense when the boyfriend is found murdered, and Simon becomes the chief suspect."
Simon is determined to find his daughter, who disappears after this encounter. What he finds instead is a string of murders that all seem to be tied to his daughter, or at least to her drug dealing boyfriend Aaron Corval. There are two additional story lines, one involving a professional assassination team and the second follows a private detective, also looking for a different missing person. To get more detail on all the story lines, see the review from The New York Journal of Books. Intricate plot with  two big surprises at the end. Totally engrossing read for those who enjoy thrillers.
More reviews available from Publishers Weekly,  Kirkus, and USA Today.

Fool Me Once

I like Harlan Coben's books and have blogged about several of them (The Woods, Long Lost, and Missing You) . He has written almost 2 dozen books, a series of sport-related ones featuring Myron Bolitar (good even if you aren't a sports fan), and his stand-alone thrillers.
Here we meet former Army Captain and special ops helicopter pilot Maya Stern Burkett, whose husband Joe has been recently murdered. She is left to care for their two-year old daughter, Lily, and is encouraged by a friend to get a nanny cam, even though the nanny she has hired is the daughter of Joe's former nanny. Joe Burkett comes from a wealthy family and this is the 2nd of their sons to die, although the younger son died several years ago. Maya is also reeling from the brutal torture and murder of her sister, Claire, just two years ago. Maya is beginning to feel like death follows her.
But she is determined to find her sister's killer--obsesssed, actually, about bringing him/ her to justice. Then the investigating detective tells Maya that the gun that killed her husband was the same one that killed her sister. One of her former Army buddies, Shane, helps her follow old leads but more deaths follow and someone is setting Maya up to look like the killer. When Maya comes home one day and reviews the nanny cam, she sees Joe walk into the room where Lily is playing. But of course that can't be, because Maya was there when Joe was shot in the park. This is a very twisty cat and mouse game and the ending is a real shocker.

Missing You

I have read and enjoyed several of Harlan Coben's books, including some of his Myron Bolitar series. The protagonist of this book is Kat Donovan, a NYPD detective who has lived a solitary life ever since her dad was murdered and her fiancé at the time subsequently left her--nearly 20 years ago. Best friend Stacy takes matters into her own hands and puts Kat's profile on a singles dating web site. Kat is stunned to find a picture of her former fiancé, Jeff, on the website, indicating that he is widowed with one child. When she tries to contact him, sharing the video to a song that was uniquely theirs, he seems strangely unaware of its significance, and cuts off their contact, saying he needs to move on. In the meantime, Kat is contacted by a young man who says his mother is missing after having gone off for special vacation with a man she met on line--the same man Kat saw as her former fiancé--only using a different name. The young man, Brandon, is a computer programmer and hacked the website to track down Kat and ask for her help in finding his mother. What reveals is, of course, an elaborate plot to lure unsuspecting and financially well-off singles into a trap where they are held prisoner in underground boxes and psychologically, or sometimes physically, coerced into turning over all their financial information to their captors. Kat is thrown into a race to find the perpetrators before Brandon's mother joins the pile of corpses at a remote Pennsylvania farm. In the process, she finds Jeff, who has indeed changed his name, and learns why he really left after her father's death.  A fairly surprising twist in that part of the plot.

Six Years

I have certainly read other books by Harlan Coben with great enjoyment (e.g. Fool Me Once, Missing You,  Long Lost & The Woods) and this one did not disappoint. He is a prolific author of twisty thrillers, several of which have been made into films or TV series. When Professor Jake Fisher sees an obituary on the Lanford College alumni page, he is plunged into a world of well-kept secrets, which, if revealed, have deadly consequences. Six years ago, the one true love of his life, Natalie, suddenly dropped him, married a supposed former boyfriend and made Jake promise never to intrude in their lives. He made a promise. But now that man, Todd Sanderson, is apparently dead and Jake cannot help going to the funeral to at least get a glimpse of Natalie. But the widow is not Natalie and so Jake begins searching for her where they met, a small town in Vermont near an artists' retreat. But his questioning of the locals elicits a cloud of lies and ignites an attempt on his life by very scary people. When he learns that Todd was tortured and murdered by the same people who kidnapped and attempted to kill him, he knows he is on the right track--but it's one that could lead to his death or the deaths of those he most cares about.
Reviews from The Washington Post, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly.