2024 the best harlan coben books review

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(as of Dec 16, 2024 01:33:07 UTC - Details)

2024 Audie Award Finalist for Best Thriller/Suspense Audiobook

2023 SOVAS Award Winner for Audiobook Narration—Thrillers, Best Voiceover

Five years ago, an innocent man began a life sentence for murdering his own son. Today he found out his son is still alive.

David Burroughs was once a devoted father to his three-year-old son Matthew, living a dream life just a short drive away from the working-class suburb where he and his wife, Cheryl, first fell in love—until one fateful night when David woke suddenly to discover Matthew had been murdered while David was asleep just down the hall.

Half a decade later, David’s been wrongly accused and convicted of the murder, left to serve out his time in a maximum-security prison—a fate which, grieving and wracked with guilt, David didn’t have the will to fight. The world has moved on without him. Then Cheryl’s younger sister, Rachel, makes a surprise appearance during visiting hours bearing a strange photograph. It’s a vacation shot of a bustling amusement park a friend shared with her, and in the background, just barely in frame, is a boy bearing an eerie resemblance to David’s son. Even though it can’t be, David just knows: Matthew is still alive.

David plans a harrowing escape, determined to achieve the impossible–save his son, clear his own name, and discover the real story of what happened. But with his life on the line and the FBI following his every move, can David evade capture long enough to reveal the shocking truth?

Reviewer: Avid Runner
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great read
Review: This was my first Harlan Corben book and it did not disappoint. Exciting from beginning to end. Some twists and turns but never became ridiculous. I'm so excited to read more from Corben. My new favorite suspense author.

Reviewer: John B. Rogers
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Page turner with unbelievable plot
Review: It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction. That’s because truth is truth. If two or four or eight highly unlikely things happen, one has to believe. In fiction, the boundaries are much tighter if an odd event is part of the plot (as it usually is). That’s because too many very unusual events which are necessary links in solving a murder read like artifice. Coben cruises along the edge of artifice in this novel of suspense.The writing is very good, sometimes inspiring. David Burroughs is a well-crafted character. Rachel is well done, too. I thought Pixie and Hayden, the joint antagonists, were C-list heavies. The book moved along well, a genuine page-turner, despite a hard to believe plot. When a good writer like Harlan Coben gets to 30+ books, it’s got to be a little hard to find a clever plot that hasn’t been done, perhaps by the writer himself.So about the stranger than fiction issue: for the plot to succeed, we need the boy Matthew/Theo to have a red hemangioma (rare, but not incredibly so), which becomes the inciting incident of the story. Then David must recognize a person with a white forelock to make the next link in the chain work. There’s never a description of how mutilated the real victim is, but it’s enough that the body is unrecognizable. Yet, no DNA test. Coben tries to pass that off through David’s thoughts (“Perhaps, I surmise, the brutality had been to cover up the victim’s—yes, good, think of him as a victim, not Matthew—identity. The victim was male, of course. He was Matthew’s size and general shape and skin tone. But they hadn’t run a DNA test or anything like that. Why would they?”) Well, David, if they couldn’t positively identify the victim, they’d run DNA, at least if the story played out in the last decade, which it did (post-Covid). One or two stranger than fiction events are okay. Three is too much … BUT the writing’s good, and the pages practically turn themselves.

Reviewer: CHarper
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very good read
Review: Very good book with lots of twists and turns but the story flows together so well. The ending wraps it all up. I look forward to reading more from this author.

Reviewer: Booklover
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Hard to put down
Review: A very intense novel. A father is accused of killing his son and sent to prison. No one has visited him in five years. Then he has a visitor who believes his son is alive. Could it be true?

Reviewer: Bill B
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very entertaining
Review: I enjoyed the book and it was easy to follow but the story line was a bit far- fetched. I think most of his books are great reads. This was very good, but I kept asking myself what else can happen that is totally unbelievable.

Reviewer: Trey Stone
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Will set your gears in motion
Review: Harlan Coben has been highly recommended to me more than once – so when I learned he had a new book coming out, just around the time I needed something new to read, I jumped at the chance. I wasn’t disappointed!The plot? A guy is in prison for murdering his young son. He’s been there for five years. He doesn’t think he’s guilty, but that doesn’t matter: all the evidence says that he is. That’s until someone shows up with something that convinces him he’s not. In fact – his son might not even be dead at all.Coben writes in a very straight forward way and I love that. It’s not that it isn’t exciting and gripping, it’s more that he doesn’t put anything in between. There’s a sense of getting exactly what you’ve asked for, and that’s never not appreciated in my book.The plot is exciting. Straight off the first page you’re pulled into a mystery that won’t let you go, and it seems impossible that our protagonist is going to find a way to figure it all out. Every step of the way you catch yourself thinking, “well, that’s it, it’s over now,” but then somehow it manages to carry on rolling. Coben is very good at that.I enjoy trying to figure out books, especially mystery thrillers like this, and I did perhaps feel a tiny bit disappointed in the ending. I wanted there to be something more, something I hadn’t understood, but there wasn’t. That doesn’t make it a bad book or bad ending, it just means I’m hard to please.As a first time Coben-reader, I’m sold. His writing reminds of Don Winslow or Lee Child, and I’m very glad for the recommendation. If you’re into mystery thrillers that will set your gears into motion, I’d happily pass the recommendation on.

Reviewer: Trish
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Enjoyable read
Review: This was a good thrilling story from the start. It was a easy, enjoyable read. The twists were predictable. It wrapped up the story very nicely. 3.5 stars.

Reviewer: Patti Klemonsky
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Kept me on the edge!
Review: Pretty riveting, because I was never quite sure who the father was, until right at the end! Definitely a good read.

Reviewer: Maria Rita
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Excelente autor

Reviewer: Pguerra
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Intense plot, many twists and turns, will keep you reading through the night! Fast paced and not repetitive, warming characters, unputdownable book.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer CarlosE
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: No es lo mejor, pero es entretenido.

Reviewer: Paulina Pirart
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Too small print

Reviewer: MattBur
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Harlan Coben's 'I Will Find You' is an electrifying thriller that keeps readers on the edge of their seats with its relentless pace and unexpected twists. With masterful storytelling and gripping suspense, Coben delivers yet another page-turner that will leave readers guessing until the very end.Coben is known for his skillful storytelling, intricate plotlines, and well-developed characters, which often keep readers engaged and entertained throughout his novels. This is another great entry to that list of novels.