Caught

Caught by Harlan Coben is a 2010 Dutton publication.

Remember those shows where pedophiles were lured into a sting operation, thinking they were meeting up with an underage girl, only to find themselves under arrest?

Well, this is the story of Dan Mercer, who falls into that same kind of trap- and Wendy Tynes is the reporter who set him up. When things take an unexpected and shocking turn, it leaves Wendy with more questions than answers.

Meanwhile, the case of missing teenager Hayley McWaid suddenly heats up when evidence surfaces that connects Dan Mercer to Hayley. While this stunning development seems to confirm that Dan was exactly the type of man Wendy thought he was, things just aren’t adding up and Wendy won’t stop until she show more gets the whole story.

My 2021 reading resolution is to read more books from my TBR list and a significantly fewer number of ARCs. My TBR list was nearing the 4000 mark by the end of last year, so the first thing I did was start culling through the list, purging nearly a thousand books from the pile. Sad, but necessary. But, while I was going through all those books I was surprised to find this book had been languishing on my shelf for eight years!! I left a Harlan Coben novel on my TBR list all that time? Apparently so. How could that be? LOL- ( I'm sure there are plenty of his books I've never on my list for eight whole years.)

Naturally, I had to dive into it immediately. I almost read the book in one sitting. Maybe it was the comfort of the familiar style, or the quality of the writing, or that it kept me engaged and challenged enough to loathe putting the book down.

Whatever the reason it reminded me of why I became such big fan of this author. While I can’t say that compared to his other books, this was one of his very best- in fact, the plausibility meter was almost completely off the charts- but it was definitely a page-turner and kept me guessing from start to finish... Oh, and if you like the Myron Bolitar series, Win makes a very brief appearance in the book, which was the icing on the cake for me.

Overall, finding this book tucked deep down on the TBR pile was a pleasant surprise and an entertaining diversion.

4 stars show less

TV Tabloid reporter Wendy Tynes is on a mission to identify and bring down sexual predators via televised sting operations. Her latest target is a social worker known as a friend to troubled teens.
Meanwhile, a seventeen-year-old girl disappears. Her family hears nothing for three months and now everyone assumes the worst. As a community struggles to cope with the loss of the missing girl, and the predator who may have taken her, Wendy realizes she can’t trust her own instincts or the motives of the people around her.

The story also has a fascinating and realistically flawed heroine in Wendy Tynes. I started off really disliking her only to find myself sympathetic as the story progressed. Wendy’s determination to find out the real show more truth about what’s been going on, even to the point where it puts her own career in doubt, is admirable, and she certainly needs every ounce of that determination when faced with the twists and turns of the complex plot.

I don't often read Harlan Coben and I'm not sure why. I'll definitely make sure I read more in the future. show less

Harlan Coben is one of my favorite authors and for good reason: he can twist and spin a thriller until you're dizzy with suspense. Caught fit that mold perfectly. There were so many angles in this case I couldn't see the ending coming until it was laid out in front of me on a platter with a neat little bow. My favorite Coben's are his Myron Bolitar series, although I love all his standalones like this one as well, but I was so excited by the cameo's played by some of my fammiliar friends from the Bolitar series and over-the-moon with the bit part played by Win.

Ok, I had vowed that if this book annoyed or bored me as badly as the last couple of Coben's books, this was the last of his that I was reading. Well, I'll be reading his next publication. Coben did an great job on this. He took two seemingly unrelated stories and managed to weave them intricately and beautifully together. The twists and turns at the end were completely plausible. One point of the ending I had actually guessed at, but at another point in the story, I figured I was wrong. It was nice to see brief flashes of old favorite characters from previous stories showing up plausibly in this new tale without feeling forced.

I highly recommend this book if you're a fan of Coben, or just well written thrillers.

From Amazon:

Reporter Wendy Tynes is making a name for herself, bringing down sexual offenders on nationally-televised sting operations. But when social worker Dan Mercer walks into her trap, and is tied to the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old New Jersey girl, the shocking consequences will have Wendy doubting her instincts about the motives of the people around her.

My Thoughts:

As with most of Harlan Coben's books, he never takes the obvious choice in his books. In Caught, just when you think you see where the stories are going, something gets thrown in the mix that changes your views. What could have been a book about sexual predators turns into something much more...an examination of the cost of holding grudges and modern show more parenting. He creates characters that we can easily identify with and come to care about. Each one is thrown into situations that could be easily ripped straight from today's local or national news. The storytelling is solid and the mystery keeps you guessing until the very end and I can almost guarantee your guesses will be wrong. But, hey...that's the fun in a good mystery and this one is one of the best. show less

I really enjoy Harlan Coben’s ‘grab you by the throat and shake you around a bit’ beginnings to many of his novels. I dislike stories of false accusations where the wrongly accused and the reader suffer through idiocy and perfidy of other characters while trying to establish innocence and find the real villain—too much unrelieved tension for too long in most cases. And I really dislike the idea of trapping criminals on TV for entertainment purposes. There’s no sympathy from me for the criminals, in this case pedophiles (ugh!), but it is NOT entertainment in my mind.

In Caught we have all of the above. True, we are not one hundred percent sure Dan Mercer is innocent, but it sure looks that way. And in this case, being caught on show more camera and accused of this heinous crime, we know his life is over. I was not anticipating a pleasant reading experience based on the first dozen pages of this novel.

Fortunately, for me, the story moves away from this focus to a series of subplots involving related crimes, unrelated crimes, revenge, and tragic accidents that kept me confused and guessing to the end. Mysterious conspiracies related to Dan Mercer’s college suite-mates, the murder of a teen aged girl, and the disappearance of the murdered Dan Mercer’s body—how are they all related? Coben always ties things up, but for me, the endings do not usually have the impact of the beginnings. They seem to be a letdown after initial fireworks. This book was the same, but its complex intertwining threads kept it interesting and entertaining all the way through.

Even though I have some complaints about Coben’s novels, I have read them all. Recommended for a entertaining read. show less

You know what you're getting with a Harlan Coben novel. It's going to be fast moving, quite witty, and have lots of twists and turns. On the other hand, there's a samey-ness about all his novels, even the stand-alone ones, which resolve in similar - very very complicated - ways. It's been a while since I read one, but this took me by surprise, being a lot more rounded and more believable, and featuring multiple mysteries. The resolution - though it depended to a degree on the police missing things that ordinary folk can spot - was capable of being understood without multiple readings and a mind map.

It's a book with a storm cloud of tears hovering over it - it really is a heart wrenching read at times with its cast of the bereaved, show more though this is well balanced with some well placed humour, mostly provided by the 'Fathers' Club' which features a would-be rapper. As noted, he "...looked like Jay-Z if Jay-Z suddenly aged ten years and never worked out and was a pasty white guy trying to look like Jay-Z". Great line, and a great read. show less