Review: THE WOODS, Harlan Coben

• this edition published by Thorndike 2007
• ISBN 978-0-7862-9488-6
• 588 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Good Reads)

Twenty years ago at summer camp, Paul Copeland's sister died in the woods, the alleged victim of a serial killer. Her body was never found. Now, Paul is the prosecutor for Essex County, New Jersey, immersed in one of the biggest cases of his career-a case that will change everything he believes about the past...and the truth.

My Take

Paul Copeland is a single father raising a young daughter, and also the county prosecutor of Essex, New Jersey.

He is in the middle of a rape case when the father of one of the rapists decides to do whatever he can to keep his son out of jail. He gives a sleazy investigative firm carte blanche to do whatever they can to investigate Copeland and to deflect him from the prosecution.

They focus on the disappearance of Copeland's sister twenty years earlier and soon the ghosts begin to rise. A homicide victim turns out to be a man who died twenty years before and Copeland is left wondering if his sister is also still alive. If she is, who knew about it?

Although this is a mesmerising tale, it takes a long time to get anywhere and like most Coben novels that I have read it spans a huge amount of time and enormous array of characters.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read
4.4, CAUGHT
4.3, DON'T LET GO
4.3, NO SECOND CHANCE
4.5, RUN AWAY