I'd like to give this book a bit higher. I love Coben's novels; I love the way he turns a plot around and around, and it still makes sense. But it isn't his best, and I can't rank it among those books.

In this one, a suburban "soccer mom" is drawn into a missing persons case after 17 years of separation. At the same time, a photographer is also pulled back into the same case, because there's been another disappearance, and he happened to be on the scene and took a picture of the area where the disappearances took place. Everyone's harboring secrets, like they always are in Coben's works. If there weren't these secrets, there wouldn't be any story!

The familiar theme of the past echoing forward into the future is present here, as all those secrets start to come to light, affecting the principles' present lives. A clean-cut boyfriend/girlfriend killer team adds the threat and danger which begins to compel action by all involved. Some familiar faces make cameos here, including investigator Loren Muse and defense attorney extraordinaire Hester Crimstein, but they are bit players at best. I found it interesting that Coben presents some of the characters' "sordid" pasts as not exactly something to escape from, at least for THESE characters.

The reason I don't rank it as high as usual is because I'm just not that sympathetic to the characters in this book as I find myself in most of Coben's works. I've had that problem with other stand-alone novels by Coben as well. The writing and plotting is as good as Coben gets, which is very good, and that's why I'd like to give this book a bit higher score. 4.5 stars, perhaps? Any way you look at it, it was, for me, a very enjoyable read.

*****