Just Finished Reading: The Woods by Harlan Coben (FP: 2007)

State Prosecutor Paul Copeland has a problem, a big problem. His case is starting to fall apart at the seams and it’s increasingly looking like the rich college kids are going to walk on the rape charge. But things are about to get a whole lot more interesting. Two New York detectives want to see him about a body they discovered with his details on him. An even bigger surprise is that Paul recognises him – except he shouldn’t. Because the corpse should have been rotting in a grave for the last 20 years in the woods surrounding the Summer Camp where four teenagers supposed died at the hands of a convicted serial killer. But if the recent, now definitely dead, victim walked out of the woods that night maybe the other missing teenager did too? Paul has only one course of action open to him. Find that other person and find out what really happened on that night and face the possibility that his younger sister might still be alive. But if she is why has she been in hiding for so long and why does his Russian émigré Uncle strongly advise him to stop digging before he finds things that really can’t be buried again?

I’ve been picking up a number of modern crime thrillers for a while now mostly from my local supermarket. They tend to be cheap, anywhere from 30-50% off, so it’s a good way to expand my reading range and delve into somewhat unfamiliar areas. Both my mother and brother are huge fans of the genre so I thought that I’d finally dip my toe in the current. Certainly in this case I was not disappointed. This is my first by this author and I doubt if it will be my last. It moved along at a cracking pace and I zoomed through it easily passing 100 pages a day. The characterisation of all of the main players was very good and I really liked the main character. It was a bit silly in places I think but they were just minor quibbles along the way. The investigation and, more importantly, the reveal was very well done and I really liked the ending. All in all it was a bloody good read – without all that much blood actually. I’m not a huge fan of gore for gore sake. OK, in murder books there’s going to be a bit but you don’t need to dwell on it. I much prefer a bit of subtlety than blood splattered pages – so messy and sticky! So if you’re interested in a well plotted crime thriller you could do much worse than start here.