Harlan Coben

Run Away by Harlan Coben is a fast-paced thriller that follows the desperate father Simon Greene. When Simon spots his estranged, drug-addicted daughter Paige performing music in New York’s Central Park, he approaches her with the hope of bringing her home. However, Paige flees, dragging Simon into a perilous underworld filled with drugs, criminal gangs, and murder. As Simon embarks on a quest to find her, he becomes entangled in a killing, making him a prime suspect. Amidst this chaos, he show more uncovers shocking family secrets and brutal truths that are far darker than he could have ever imagined.

I really enjoyed this one. Harlan Coben is a master at crafting suspenseful thrillers, and he doesn’t hold back here. From the very beginning, he hooked me with Simon’s desperate search for his daughter. What follows is a gripping, fast-paced story filled with shocking twists that start early and keep coming.

I loved the way Coben unfolds the narrative, layering family drama with dark secrets, crime, and moral complexity. The pacing is excellent—I was constantly anticipating the next revelation, and each chapter pulled me deeper into the mystery. The characters feel authentic and flawed in ways that made me invested in their fates, especially Simon’s relentless determination as a father. The ending was particularly clever and deeply satisfying, tying everything together in true Coben fashion with a final twist I didn’t see coming. Highly recommended for anyone who loves twisty domestic thrillers with heart and edge.

I purchased the audiobook through my Audible membership. Steven Weber’s narration was exceptional.

I have photos and additional information that I'm unable to include here. It can all be found on my blog, in the link below.
A Book And A Dog show less

Even if you normally prefer character-driven novels, Harlan Coben's novels should be the exception. His are plot driven, but, oh, those stories! They're witty without being comedic and so smart you'll wonder how Coben thinks of these things. Best: the beginnings grab you from page 1, and the solutions to the mysteries are always a surprise.

That describes all Coben's novels but his Myron Bolitar series in particular. And HOME is a return to this long-neglected series.

Win's cousin's young son show more and his friend were kidnapped 10 years ago when they were 6 years old. One of the boys suddenly appears in London, England. Once again, Myron Bolitar and his best friend Win take on criminals, creeps, and normal people in extraordinary circumstances. And, again, every time you think you've figured them out, you haven't.

My Coben novels are on a bookshelf alongside other "C" authors such as Cather, Cohen, and Cooper. But unlike those authors' books, ALL of Coben's books are there. He's never disappointed me. show less

Having selected this novel from a pile of offerings by this author, I wish I had bothered to read the introduction before checking it out of the library. It begins like this:

“Okay, if this is the first book of mine you’re going to try, stop now. Return it. Grab another. It’s okay. I’ll wait.”

Coben goes on to explain that he wrote the book 20 years ago and has not edited it since. He states that it is flawed and implies that it is rather poorly written, but reassures the reader that show more he still loves this book. I hadn’t read anything by him before so I thought that I’d still give this a whirl. Frankly, I wish I’d listened to his advice.

The premise

A ridiculously gorgeous and rich model turned supremely successful business woman secretly marries a stupidly handsome and rich pro athlete at the top of his career. While on their secret honeymoon, David disappears and it soon transpires that he has drowned. Or has he? Driven by her grief, Laura is compelled to discover exactly what happened to her new husband, even if it means drawing a killer’s attention to her.

My thoughts

The prologue gave an immediate flavour of the writing style: clichéd and overly dramatic. Set 29 years earlier than the main storyline, it clearly directed my attention to the past as an important element of the plot. Stylistically, it reminded me of the opening sequence of a horror movie (or even a Point Horror story!) as an unidentified woman argues with a man who is then murdered by an unseen hand. It succeeded in inducing some curiosity from me but was very poorly written, as was the whole book.

The opening chapter launched me into the world of the rich and famous. Personally, this alienated me a little from the start as I would rather read about ‘real’ people. A top model and a pro athlete just makes it all seem a bit Jackie Collins - especially as the first scene opens on the special couple’s honeymoon with them joking about how worn out they are. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge!) Oh - and the ex model, who retired at 23, was Businesswoman of the Year. The characters reminded me of a high school novel that focused on the homecoming queen and top jock. Obviously, there are real people who are incredibly talented, but this just felt very one dimensional and I found it difficult to care about these characters.

I quickly found the focus on physical beauty and admiration rather tedious, (yes, they’re gorgeous, I understand that, now please stop writing about their glistening skin,) and the clunking sexual puns could be spotted several lines ahead of their wince-inducing dénouement. Early on, David actually uses the cliché 'you've made me the happiest man in the world' followed by 'I couldn't live without you’. I felt like I was reading a Mills and Boon offering. This insistence on physical beauty continues throughout. Take the following example:

“When Laura and [close friend] Serita entered the Heritage of Boston Bank together, everyone stopped. Typewriters halted their clacking. Heads turned. Eyes stared. Mouths dropped. Men gawked. Walking alone, Laura and Serita could make a man’s eyes water; looking at them both at the same time could cause a cerebral accident.”

It makes me wonder how they made it to the bank without causing traffic accidents. This actually isn’t the whole description, but you get the idea. This is very bad chicklit pretending to be good crime fiction.

From the opening it is clear that David’s disappearance is more complicated than the tragic shark death (yes, really) his policeman friend sadly reveals to the grieving widow. Switches in third person perspective make it clear that Laura is right to be suspicious: everyone around her seems to have secrets related to her husband’s disappearance. Why is some of David’s money missing? Who is the new mystery player who has taken David’s spot on the team? And why was Laura’s mother so firmly against her relationship with David?

The trouble is, although there are a lot of questions, the answers are disconcertingly obvious to the reader (at least, they were to me, and I deliberately read crime fiction with my brain switched off) and despite Coben’s best efforts at introducing twists and turns into the plot, from about a fifth of the way through I had most of the answers. Furthermore, a fifth of the way through was 100 pages; this book needed a better editor as it would have felt a lot more tightly paced if it was a good 100-150 pages shorter.

The characters are firmly one dimensional, which is how Coben justifies his ludicrous conclusion. David is motivated purely by his love of Laura; Laura is driven by her love of David; and everyone else is determined to keep secrets from the past locked away. Motivations are incredibly simplistic and do not feel sufficient, even if you assume that several of the characters are insane. The most interesting character and exception to the rule is Stan, David’s brother and a weasel who tries to better himself. His slips back into being an evil idiot are perhaps inevitable but I found he added some interest to an otherwise bland cast. That said…his romantic and moral path was ultimately rather predictable.

Final thoughts

Predictable plotting and one dimensional characterisation do not have to equal a bad novel, but I would struggle to identify a redeeming feature in this instance. The writing style is poor: clunky, clichéd and lacking variety in sentence structure. The book is too long and feels over written. I would probably still try a later Coben work as reviews I have read online suggest that this is not typical of his oeuvre, but I was disappointed with this and won’t be rushing to read another. If you’ve never read anything by him and would like to try, I’d follow his advice: don’t start with this one. show less

This is the most idiotic book I have ever read. What I write below contains spoilers, which you really should read so you don't have to have your intelligence insulted by reading this nonsense.

The main character's husband and sister are murdered separately in suspicious circumstances. The whole novel is centred on the main character investigating their murders and uncovering the conspiracy behind them.

The plot is fine, albeit dull. The writing is bland. The dialogue can be cringeworthy. The show more characters are paper thin. It's the type of book you start reading and by the time you realise you don't like it, you've nearly finished it, so you might as well end it.

Then the ending happened. The big ending twist reveals that the main character killed her husband because her husband killed her sister.

I'll repeat that. The plot is the main character investigating the murders of her husband and sister to find out who did them. The twist is that she knew who did them all along.

The author is too lazy to even do a cliché Fight Club type scenario, with the main character forgetting what had happened and piecing everything together until the reveal. Instead, we get to the final scenes and it's just "yeah, I knew my husband killed my sister, that's why I killed him." Why was the main character investigating it for the whole novel?! When I was five years old I was told to never end a story with "but it was all a dream", this is worse!

What an absolute insult of a book. Fool Me Once is a perfect title though, I'll never read a book by this author again. show less