Harlan Coben - The Woods

39. The Woods by Harlan Coben (2007)

Length: 404 pages

Genre: Contemporary Mystery

Started: 8 June 2015

Finished: 11 June 2015

Where did it come from? From a Library Book Sale 

How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 9 April 2014

Why do I have it? I like contemporary mysteries and Harlan Coben is a new author for me.

On his deathbed, Paul Copeland's father grabs his hand and urgently whispers one final directive to his son: "Paul, we still need to find her." Two decades before, four teenage campers had wandered into the woods one sultry summer night. Some time later, two of the missing campers were found murdered, but the other two teens were never seen again. The lives of four families were changed forever. Now, twenty years later, they are all about to change again.

Paul 'Cope' Copeland's life was turned upside down twenty years ago with the loss of his younger sister, Camille. Even now, he still feels the muted pain of that loss, although life has inevitably moved on for him. He is now the county prosecutor for Essex, New Jersey - a widower who recently lost his wife to cancer; learning to parent his six-year-old daughter as a single father. Balancing family life and a rapidly ascending career as a prosecutor distracts Cope from all his past traumas, but only for so long.

When a homicide victim is found with evidence linking him to Cope, the long-buried secrets of the prosecutor's family are threatened. Might this homicide victim actually be one of the campers who disappeared with his sister? Could Camille still be alive? Cope can't be entirely sure, but he knows that he needs to find out.

Yet, investigating this case will ultimately force Cope to face so many things from his past; people and emotions he believed he'd effectively left behind during that summer of twenty years ago. There will be Lucy, Cope's first love; his estranged mother, who abandoned her family; and the secrets held by his Russian parents, secrets which they might have been hiding even from their own children. Cope must decide what is better left hidden in the dark and what truths can be set free into the light.

This is the first book by Harlan Coben that I've ever read, although I do have a least two others hidden somewhere on my bookshelf. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book; I found it to be very well-written and the story itself completely held my attention. I also really felt connected to the characters, and was quickly engrossed in the plot. I give this book an A! and this will most definitely not be the last book by Harlan Coben that I read.

A! - (90-95%)

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight