The Woods by Harlan Coben Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Woods
Book Review: Incredible! Interesting! and Inventive!
Summary: 5 Stars
WARNING: This book may cause you to lose sleep, ignore your responsibilities, and slack off at work until you finish it. "The Woods" was impossible to put down. It was one of those books that you just had to know what happens and you can't wait to find out. The story of Paul Copeland and the mysteries that he solves will make you feel like you're right there with him, you'll be theorizing and guessing about what you think happened. This book was incredible! I would highly recommend it!Book Review: It Kept Me On the Edge of My Seat...
Summary: 4 Stars
Really great read. I couldn't put the book down. It only took me a few hours to read. It was thoroughly enjoyable! I highly recommend this for a light read.Book Review: Main Story Sidetracked
Summary: 1 Stars
When reading this story I found the events in woods of the title took second place to the author's re-writing of the Duke rape case. Apparently the author didn't like how the case really worked out by showing up both a grasping local DA and the narrow minded arrogance of the Duke faculty. He decided to write how it "should" have turned out. In this version the rich white students at a New England college are guilty (of course). The underaged, unwed mother, crack prostitute testifies in court with voice more appropriate to Ruth Gader Ginsburg than an uneducated teenager. I gather the author wasn't about to attempt a ghetto accent and get people mad at him. The girl of course wins everyone over with the power of her story. I had to put the book down. It was just Coben indulging in his liberal fantasy.Book Review: More Suspense than You Can Shake a Stick At
Summary: 5 Stars
New Jersey County Prosecutor Paul Copeland has seen more than his share of grief and loss. Twenty years ago his sister and three others were murdered at summer camp. Two of the bodies were never found. Paul is still haunted by what happened back in the woods when his sister died and to further his pain he has never come to terms about his mother's desertion.
So long ago, but the past doesn't seem to want to stay buried. A murdered body is discovered and clues seem to point to Paul. How can this be possible? Paul begins to suspect that the dead man is somehow linked to his past and what's more, may be one of the victims of that crime that happened twenty years ago, maybe they all didn't perish back then.
There are also secrets long buried that will come to light and they will threaten everything Paul believes in, believes to be true. Paul's nerves will be stretched to the limit and yours will be too as you read through this Harlan Coben thriller. As usual with a Coben thriller there are plenty of twists and turns in this mystery that will keep you guessing as you anticipate your way through the story.
Book Review: My first Coben
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the first book of Coben's that I've read, but it won't be the last because I really enjoyed it. I understand he's written many books, some of them part of a series, others as stand-alones. This is a stand-alone, and although I've read mixed reviews, I thought it was good.
Paul "Cope" Copeland is a fairly recent widow trying to care for his young daughter alone when his past comes back to haunt him: twenty years or so before, his sister had been murdered at a summer camp they were both attending - she as a regular camper, he as a counselor. At least, the assumption is that she was murdered, along with three others. Two teenage couples had gone into the woods one night and never returned. One couple was found butchered, and the other - Paul's sister and her boyfriend - were never found but presumed dead after their torn, bloody clothes were found and another counselor at the camp went on to murder several other campers at different locations over the years.
Paul, wracked with guilt over his own role that fateful night (when he should have been doing bed checks but was instead fooling around with his own girlfriend) has done his best to put it behind him. One evening while attending his daughter's school recital, however, he's approached by two police detectives and taken to a morgue to look at a body. That body blows the past open in a way no one could have anticipated, especially Paul, and he finds himself having to go back to the very beginning and relive that night all over again, because what he and everyone else thought happened may have been very, very different from the reality.
I thought the pacing was excellent, and the method of using one character to speak in the first person and others in the 3rd was very effective (this tactic seems to be becoming more and more popular). I thought the writing was exceptionally clean and smooth, and emotionally jarring in an electrifying way, yet not sentimental or sappy at all. I was impressed and will look for more books by Coben.