Not one of Coben's best. For one thing, a character who speaks in the first person in the prologue immediately fades into the background after I had become intrigued by his story. I think it would have been stronger if he had been the protagonist, a man trying to get out of his own predicament. Instead, Coben switches to a new character and I couldn't quite get into her. (For one thing, the book changes from first person to third.) He briefly introduces a character from other books of his, but that's unsatisfying, too, because he's a rather colorful character and here he's only given a bit part. In this book, he served only as an easy way for the main character to get information that she would have had trouble getting otherwise.

That was the main weakness of the book: the mystery (there was actually more than one) was convoluted and the main character solved it/them without the reader being able to see all her thought processes or problem-solving actions. She just suddenly "knows." I don't usually care whether I figure the mystery out on my own, but I like to have more clues along the way.

Not exactly a waste of time (it was a quick read), but I certainly wouldn't recommend it as an introduction to Harlan Coben's work.