Review: WIN, Harlan Coben

• 
  This edition read as an e-book on Libby from my local library
  
• Published: 3 August 2021
• ISBN: 9781787462991
• Imprint: Arrow
• Pages: 448

Synopsis (publisher)

Over twenty years ago, heiress Patricia Lockwood was abducted during a robbery of her family's estate, then locked inside an isolated cabin for months. Patricia escaped, but so did her captors, and the items stolen from her family were never recovered.

Until now.

On New York's Upper West Side, a recluse is found murdered in his penthouse apartment, alongside two objects of note: a stolen Vermeer painting and a leather suitcase bearing the initials WHL3. For the first time in years, the authorities have a lead not only on Patricia's kidnapping but also on another FBI cold case - with the suitcase and painting both pointing them towards one man.

Windsor Horne Lockwood III - or Win as his few friends call him - doesn't know how his suitcase and his family's stolen painting ended up in this dead man's apartment. But he's interested - especially when the FBI tell him that the man who kidnapped his cousin was also behind an act of domestic terrorism, and that he may still be at large.

The two cases have baffled the FBI for decades. But Win has three things the FBI does not:: a personal connection to the case, a large fortune, and his own unique brand of justice ...

My Take

Win is a man who has grown up in a world of privelege, and spends his time solving mysteries, usually for others bu this time mysteries are connected to him. How is it that a case and a painting he owns have turned up in the apartment of a murdered man?

The connections are not ones he expected to discover.  

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

4.5, THE WOODS 

4.4, I WILL FIND YOU

3.0, THE MATCH 

4.5, FOOL ME ONCE

Review: FOOL ME ONCE, Harlan Coben

• 
  This edition made available on Libby as an e-book by my local library
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Century Physical (3 January 2024)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1804947202
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1804947203

Synopsis (Amazon)

You think you know the truth. The truth is you know nothing.

If your husband was murdered.

And you were a witness.

How do you explain it when he appears on your nanny cam, back from the dead?

You thought you trusted him.

Now you can't even trust yourself.

Dark secrets and a terrifying hunt for the truth lie at the heart of this gripping thriller by the 'master of the double twist' Harlan Coben ...

My Take

Maya Stern is a soldier with PTSD. Her sister was murdered 4 months before when Captain Maya Stern was on operations in Iran. And now her husband Joe has been murdered.

The story opens at Joe's funeral where Maya and their 2 year old daughter Lily are with the Burkett family at the graveside.

After the funeral Maya's friend Eileen installs a "nanny cam" in the lounge room so that Maya can keep a check on how the nanny Isabella interacts with 2 year old Lily.  At this point Maya is visited by an NYPD homicide detective who wants to go over the details of what happened the day Joe was murdered. Maya was there when some thugs approached them and then she ran. So she didn't actually see the final shot and she hasn't seen Joe's body.

Maya has left the Army and is now working as a flight instructor and she returns to work the day after the funeral.

And then Joe appears on the nanny cam.

This story is full of twists and turns as we try to work out whether Joe is really dead, and, if he is, who killed him. I enjoyed it much more than my last outing with this author, but even so I didn't see the final twist coming.

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
• 4.5, THE WOODS 
• 4.4, I WILL FIND YOU
• 3.0, THE MATCH 

Review: THE MATCH, Harlan Coben

• 
  This edition made available as an e-book by my local library on Libby
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grand Central Publishing (February 7, 2023) 
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1538748290
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1538748299
  

Synopsis

After months away, Wilde has returned to the Ramapo Mountains in the wake of a failed bid at domesticity that confirms what he's known all along: He belongs on his own, free from the comforts and constraints of modern life.

Suddenly, a DNA match on an online ancestry database brings Wilde closer to his past than he's ever dreamed, and finally gives Wilde the opening he needs to track down his father. But meeting the man brings up more questions than answers. So Wilde reaches out to his last, most desperate lead, a second cousin who disappears as quickly as he resurfaces, having experienced an epic fall from grace that can only be described as a waking nightmare.

Was his cousin's downfall a long time coming? Or was he the victim of a conspiracy as cunning as it is complex? And how does it all connect to the man once known as The Stranger, a treacherous fugitive with a growing following whose mission and methods have only turned more dangerous with time?

 

My Take

No wonder I had problems understanding this book! I have just discovered that this is the second book in a series. I kept thinking that I had missed something. There were so many times where I went back and read a passage again and was forced into making guesses.

The book raised a number of interesting issues: reality TV programs that "play" with the emotions of participants/contestants; the use of DNA to trace relatives etc. That bit I appreciated. But there were really too many holes in my understanding for me to really enjoy reading the book.

My Rating: 3.0

I've also read

• 4.4, CAUGHT
• 4.3, DON'T LET GO
• 4.3, NO SECOND CHANCE
• 4.5, RUN AWAY
• 4.5, THE WOODS 
• 4.4, I WILL FIND YOU

Review: I WILL FIND YOU, Harlan Coben

• 
  This edition made available as an e-book on Libby by my local library
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Century Physical (28 November 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1529160553
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529160550 
• author website
  

Synopsis (publisher) 

David and Cheryl Burroughs are living the dream - married, a beautiful house in the suburbs, a three year old son named Matthew - when tragedy strikes one night in the worst possible way.

David awakes to find himself covered in blood, but not his own - his son's. And while he knows he did not murder his son, the overwhelming evidence against him puts him behind bars indefinitely.

Five years into his imprisonment, Cheryl's sister arrives - and drops a bombshell.

She's come with a photograph that a friend took on vacation at a theme park. The boy in the background seems familiar - and even though David realizes it can't be, he knows it is.

It's Matthew, and he's still alive.

David plans a harrowing escape from prison, determined to do what seems impossible - save his son, clear his own name, and discover the real story of what happened that devastating night.

My Take

From my point of view, a story that stretches the bounds of probability, but nevertheless a feel good scenario, helping us think that justice can be achieved in the most improbable ways.

Two plot strands: a father jailed for life for killing his 3 year old son, and then the possibility that the son is still alive.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read

4.4, CAUGHT
4.3, DON'T LET GO
4.3, NO SECOND CHANCE
4.5, RUN AWAY
4.5, THE WOODS

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

review: RUN AWAY, Harlan Coben

• this edition (large print) published by Grand Central Publishing 2019
• ISBN 978-1-5387-3273-1
• 530 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (author website)

A perfect family is shattered in RUN AWAY, the new thriller from the master of domestic suspense, Harlan Coben.

You’ve lost your daughter.

She’s addicted to drugs and to an abusive boyfriend. And she’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to be found.

Then, by chance, you see her playing guitar in Central Park. But she’s not the girl you remember. This woman is living on the edge, frightened, and clearly in trouble.

You don’t stop to think. You approach her, beg her to come home.

She runs.

And you do the only thing a parent can do: you follow her into a dark and dangerous world you never knew existed. Before you know it, both your family and your life are on the line. And in order to protect your daughter from the evils of that world, you must face them head on.

My Take

I was pleasantly surprised with the direction the plot of this novel took.

Simon Greene's search for his daughter in the drug dens of Manhattan leads to his wife Ingrid being shot and one of those they met in drug den being shot too.
As Ingrid lies in a coma in a Manhattan hospital Simon continues to search for his daughter Paige.  He is joined by ex FBI investigator Elena Ramirez who is searching for a missing man.
Between them they uncover a trail of dead men who seem to have some connection with each other, but neither can explain how Paige is linked to the trail.

Simon thought he and his wife Ingrid had no secrets from each other, but he was wrong. The reason Paige runs away stems from Ingrid's past, before Paige was born.

Very readable story.

My rating: 4.5

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

Review: NO SECOND CHANCE, Harlan Coben - audio book

• this audio book produced by Penguin Audio
• Original novel published 2003
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

No Second Chance is yet another of Harlan Coben's terrifying explorations of the worst of fears--Marc Seidman wakes in hospital after narrowly surviving a shooting in which his wife died and their baby daughter went missing.

The handover of a ransom from his rich in-laws goes wrong and Seidman realises that he is not only without wife and daughter--and the sister who may have been an accomplice--but he is also the principal suspect. The reader knows even more than Seidman just how much jeopardy he is in--Coben does a brilliantly disturbing job of introducing us to a pair of psychotics who are in charge of the ransom plot and who plan to take Seidman and his in-laws for another ride into insecurity and hell.

Marc turns to the one person he thinks can help him--the ex-girlfriend who still has a place in his heart and used to be a senior Federal agent. The problem is that Rachel comes with baggage, and enemies, all of her own..

My Take


This plot felt a bit as if Coben had two strands in mind: one where a child is abducted during a home invasion, and the other an adoption scam where illegal immigrants give birth to babies who are found "good homes".

The final truth of the connection between the two strands was horrifying.

One of the problems with this story was that I didn't particularly like Marc Seidman the main character. I found him self-opinionated, always sure he was right, and blind to alternatives.

My rating: 4.3

I've also read
4.4, CAUGHT
4.3, DON'T LET GO

Review: DON'T LET GO, Harlan Coben

• this edition published 2017 by Penguin Random House
• ISBN 978-1-78-089423-2
• 347 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis

With unmatched suspense and emotional insight, Harlan Coben explores the big secrets and little lies that can destroy a relationship, a family, and even a town in this powerful new thriller.

Suburban New Jersey Detective Napoleon “Nap” Dumas hasn't been the same since senior year of high school, when his twin brother Leo and Leo’s girlfriend Diana were found dead on the railroad tracks—and Maura, the girl Nap considered the love of his life, broke up with him and disappeared without explanation. For fifteen years, Nap has been searching, both for Maura and for the real reason behind his brother's death. And now, it looks as though he may finally find what he's been looking for.

When Maura's fingerprints turn up in the rental car of a suspected murderer, Nap embarks on a quest for answers that only leads to more questions—about the woman he loved, about the childhood friends he thought he knew, about the abandoned military base near where he grew up, and mostly about Leo and Diana—whose deaths are darker and far more sinister than Nap ever dared imagine.

My Take

Nap Dumas still lives in the town where he was born and where his twin brother died 15 years ago. He has never believed that his brother and his girlfriend, the daughter of the town's police chief, walked into the path of the train.

Finding out the truth is one of the reasons why he became a detective himself. But now his own girlfriend of 15 years ago has resurfaced and another policeman has been killed. Why has Maura come back and why are members of the high school Conspiracy Club being killed off?

A thriller that keeps you reading to find the truth.

My rating: 4.3

I've also read
4.4, CAUGHT