Family Secrets

Coben brings Win, Windsor Horne Lockwood III, out of mothballs and onto center stage in this self-titled adventure. Even though Coben’s books don’t lend themselves to great discussions at book club, we all love them.  And it’s good to read something fun and enjoyable. Besides he’s a Jersey boy.

How a family can lie to cover its secrets?  Win gets involved in a case with connections back to his family. He peels back the layers of lies and coverups and discovers a tragic truth. A painting belonging to Win’s family had been recovered at a home where a man was killed. Win has no idea who the man is or how he got that painting. Then the dead man turns out to be a member of a radical left group responsible for the killing of seven people decades earlier. Already intrigued, he becomes obsessed when his favorite cousin’s kidnapping around the same time is connected.

I prefer Win as Myron Bolitar’s sidekick. The two complement each other to perfection. Myron’s grounded character gives Win some great comic moments and curbs his egomania to somewhat acceptable levels. Win in a whole novel is a lot to take.

Our book club talked about the decisions made by family members and how they can affect several generations – the sins of the father, so to speak. We also talked about how lies grow and take on a life of their own.  Fun read but not great discussion.

Rating: 7.5

Photo: Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, Rijksmuseum

Something Scary in the Woods

Harlan Coben crafts another captivating mystery with The Boy from the Woods. His novels are enjoyed by our entire book club. And he’s a Jersey boy – always a plus.

The protagonist of Coben’s latest whodunit is Wilde who thirty years earlier was found in the woods of New Jersey. In a throwback to Tarzan, he had been living like a wild animal and had no memory of where he came from or what his name was.  The townspeople called him Wilde.

Fast forward to present and he is asked by Hester Crimstein, a criminal TV attorney, to probe into the disappearance of a teenage girl named Naomi Pine, a friend of her grandson. Wilde is a security expert with unique abilities to investigate and solve difficult cases. His is also a friend of Hester and her family. 

Nothing’s as it seems in the search for the missing teenager.  But what fun would it be if it were.

Coben’s books don’t usually lend themselves to intense discussion. However, we love to talk about the twists and turns and who saw what coming and so on.  Mysteries are so much fun.

We all agreed at book club that we wanted Wilde to search for his parents/relatives.  Who the hell left a young boy in the woods? That to us was the biggest secret of all.  Maybe there’s a second book being planned for Wilde and we’ll get our answer then.

Rating: 7.5

I came across this video of Harlan talking about the book and thought I’d share it – https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/harlan-coben/the-boy-from-the-woods/9781538748169/

Photo by Niilo Isotalo on Unsplash

Defunct Missile Base and Teenagers – Hmmm, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

I vividly remember nuclear survival drills in grammar school in the 1960’s.  The drills began when I entered kindergarten and continued until sometime in seventh or eighth grade.  As we got older, it became a time to break the monotony of the day with a little movement and unabashed teasing of whoever looked the silliest under the desk or tables (at some point we were too big to get under a desk.) Maybe those drills affected us more than we realized. They were so common place, so much a part of our life. Today, the reminders of those scary times are evident in the abandoned missile bases that dot the US with their No Trespassing signs and fenced perimeters. I can still hear the siren screaming through my grammar school.

Maybe that’s why our generation became the helicopter parents and soccer moms, shielding our children passionately from every discomfort. Wanting our children to thrive in a stress-free world.

Children, especially teenagers, are never stress free either by their own accord or that of their surroundings, even with all their parents’ best intentions. Harlan Coben has taken that teenage angst mixed with hormones and woven it into a tight whodunit with a closed nuclear Nike base as the background.

Nap Dumas lost his twin brother, Leo, when they were seniors in high school.  Leo and his girlfriend, Diana Styles, were

Sandy Hook Nike Launch Site

killed by a train.  Suicide or accident?   Fast forward and Nap is now a New Jersey detective and has been called to an out-of-state case involving the killing of a police officer. Not understanding why he has been summoned, he complains bitterly until he finds out that the fingerprints of his high school girlfriend, Maura, were found at the scene.  Maura had disappeared right after Leo had been killed and Nap has been looking for her ever since.

With this new information Nap sets out once again in search of Maura. He turns to his mentor, Captain Styles, Diana’s father for guidance.  Nap believes that Maura’s disappearance and the death of Leo and Diana are linked and begins to probe into his brother’s death. Some of Leo’s friends start to die, ramping up the pace and suspense of this story.  Nap keeps coming back to Leo’s Conspiracy Club that he started with his friends. The teens wanted to know why the Nike based closed down so abruptly in 1974. Could the closure have something to do with Leo’s death?  Is there a government conspiracy?

As a book club, we always enjoy Coben’s books and love the Jersey locale.  He has a way of taking suburban life and twisting a little here and there and coming up with a hell of a good tale. We talked about our childhoods under desks in school and how we are glad our children didn’t have to go through that. We also talked about what we really do and don’t know about the people closest to us. We ended up talking about trust and forgiveness.

We Jersey girls love to support our Jersey boy!  Go, Harlan – another winner!

 

Rating: 8.0

May 2014

We are bringing in the spring this year with some Chinese food at a local restaurant for our May’s monthly meeting. The book was Harlan Coben’s Missing You.

online datingCoben starts off with his protagonist, Kat Donovan, a New York detective, looking through an online dating website that her friend signed her up for.  Dating is sure different from the last time I had a date.

After reading the book I don’t know if I’d ever do online dating now.  Read my review of the book under Reviews on the right side of the website.

Most of us actually read the book and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Keep reading!