Essex County prosecutor Paul Copeland has a lot going on. He's prosecuting a rape case against a couple of privileged frat boys (think the Duke lacrosse scandal). He's a single father with a six-year-old daughter. He's also haunted by the twenty-year-old case of the disappearance and presumed murder of his sister at summer camp (in the titular woods). When another supposed victim of the summer camp murders turns up dead in the present day, Copeland starts to wonder whether his sister might still be alive and whether all of his assumptions about that case might be wrong.
My thoughts
I love these page-turner mysteries, but I have to force myself to take some time off between them; otherwise, they get too predictable and pat. I got this one for a plane ride and fell right into it.
This was my first Coben read, and there was more than enough in the plot to keep me entertained. I guessed some of the twists, but there were so many that I was pleasantly surprised more than a few times. If I have a complaint it's that maybe there's too much stuffed into one book. There are about half a dozen minor mysteries in addition to the main one (whether Copeland's sister was really murdered all those years ago). Seemingly extraneous details such as Copeland's grandfather's involvement with the KGB turn out to be completely relevant.
Bottom line
Read it when you have a few hours with nothing to interrupt you.
Fine print
The Woods, by Harlan Coben
Genre: Mystery
Photo from Goodreads
I borrowed this book from the library
No comments:
Post a Comment