by Harlan Coben
Just to give you an idea of how out of touch I am with bestseller lists, I had no clue who Harlan Coben was until movie adaptations of his books became a fixture on Netflix. I enjoyed the film version of The Stranger; some of the others, not so much.
Missing You is my first Coben book, and it’s easy to see why he’s so popular. He tells you just enough about his characters to generate interest in them, then pops them (and us) with a shocking surprise. And another, and another. Or, as the book’s blurb says, he’s the “master of the hook-and-twist.”
The protagonist of Missing You is a female cop who reminded me of Stephanie Plum, sans the goofy slapstick. A single woman with a messy love life, she’s also haunted by the murder of her cop-father. Oh yes, and she has an old flame who vanished without explanation 18 years previous. But now it seems he might be back.
The novel is fast-paced and peppered with sharp dialogue. The twists are frequent and not too implausible. Missing You is the perfect “beach read” — entertaining, but a bit shallow and forgettable.
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