"Promise Me" by Harlan Coben

An audio book.

Edna, 63, sees a girl who she thinks is an advertised runaway.

Myron Bolitar was a national-standard basketball play who had to give up because of a knee injury. He has a law degree from Yale. Now he runs an agency with bisexual Esperanza. He tells a girl Amee to phone him if ever she's in trouble. She does. He picks her up. She doesn't want to be dropped off at her parents but in a distant house. She disappears.

There are strange similarities between the Amee and the other runaway Katy - same school, same ATM used on the day they disappeared.

Myron's girlfriend is a 9/11 widow. Jessica had once wanted to marry him. She mysteriously turns up at 3am after 7 years.

The police are suspicious about Myron - the last person to see Amee. He agrees with Katy's mum, Lorraine, that he'll investigate. Katy's dad is aggressive. Wen, Myron's friend, has to kill 2 of the father's heavies heavies. Aimee's boyfriend's dad, Big Jake, is aggressive too. Are the girls pregnant? van Dine (teacher, 37) bought lingerie for Amee. He shares a secret with another teacher, prizewinning Harry. Amee's father Eric is having an affair - maybe that's why Amee left home? Myron finds that Katy's alive. He gets her to phone her mother. Myron's being tailed by Katy's dad's people.

Myron finds Katy with Rufus. He owns a sex club. Neither Katy or Rufus know about Amee. Her boyfriend Randy is a dealer. The rumour is that Randy's dad paid people off. Amee briefly appears on social media. In a coded way she says she's in trouble. Joan, Randy's mother has been beaten up by Jake, who knows that she knows something about Katy. She doesn't speak.

We learn (Eric's 3rd person PoV) that quiet Eric (Amee's dad) had been a coward all his life. But now he's going to fight back. He takes Harry captive and shoots him in the foot. He says that Van Dyne (another teacher) was Randy's drug supplier. Jake blackmailed Harry (who'd had a brief affair with a student) to keep quiet about Randy, and change his grades on the school computer. Amee had been suspicious about this and had tried to break into the school computer. Jakes was angry. Harry says he told Jake about Amee. Myron talks to Harry then Eric. He visits Katy's mum, Lorraine. Van Dyne is dead. Lorraine claims responsibility, then Jake does. They find Amee. She says she went to get an abortion (preg with teacher's child). Maybe she left Van Dyne and wanted to start a new life.

Enid comes back into the story. Her troubled, estranged son is no other than Van Dyne! Enid kidnapped Amee, offering an abortion but planning to make her keep the child. Some loose ends are tidied up.

[I dislike "with an audible bang" or "He strapped on his calmest voice". I like how, when a man is slow getting to the point, he's told "pretend I'm your wife. Cut the foreplay". I like how people new to porn shops look around as if in the Louvre. The basic plot points are ok. The way they're joined up stretches credibility, and everything's amped up - murders, Ivy League degrees, etc. Eric's Jeckyll/Hyde change is unconvincing. The extended sections of realtime dialogue save the day.]

Other reviews

• bookreporter (plot takes some weird and seemingly inexplicable twists and turns between two disappearances that are eerily connected in some ways and not related at all in others.)
• brandywinebooks (Many of today’s mystery heroes have psycho killer friends—scary, dangerous guys devoted to the hero for some reason, who are useful in the situations of extreme violence such stories tend to involve. We don’t like our heroes to be killing machines, I suppose, so we need the psycho killer friend to keep the hero alive. I found Win Lockwood a kind of unconvincing PKF. He’s supposed to be the scion of very old money. As a boy, after a serious incident of bullying, he devoted his life to learning all the killing arts. Now, apparently, he just enjoys his wealth and watches Bolitar’s back for fun. ... I found him sort of a flat, amoral deus ex machina.)

"Run Away" by Harlan Coben

An audio book.

New York. Simon's teenage daughter Paige has run away - Simon's wife Ingrid had had enough of her bad behaviour. Simon's been looking for her. After a tip-off he finds her busking badly at Strawberry Fields, Central Park. She escapes. He punches her boyfriend Aaron who he blames for leading Paige astray. The episode goes viral - hipster assaults homeless poor. With expensive legal help he avoids a charge. 3 months later the police question him again. Aaron is dead and Paige is a suspect. Simon and Ingrid go to the murder scene. They're told to go to a shoot-up den for more info. Simon is recognised there from the video. Ingrid is shot by Luther. Cornelius (who had helped them at Paige's flat) shot Luther. Luther and Ingrid end up in the same hospital.

Another story is interleaved with Simon's. Ash and Didi have known each other since childhood - both fostered. Ash kills a man in his house, then kills another. Ash is curious about the connection between the two victims. When he gives Didi a lift back to her base, he finds she's living with a cult.

An ex-detective, Elena, asks about Henry, the second victim. Simon goes to Aaron's funeral. His stepmother Enid talks to him. Aaron's Italian mother is dead, and Aaron doesn't look like his father. He's told that Paige tracked Aaron down. Why? Simon returns to the hospital where Ingrid is still in a critical condition. Her sister hints that Ingrid used to be a junkie. Elena points out that the murdered men were all adopted. She tries to track down the adoption agency. Simon discovers that Paige had tried a DNA-testing service. He gets his 3 children tested. They're all his.

Didi tells Ash that the cult leader is about to die. He had lots of son with different mothers, but only needed 2, so he sold the others. But those others are now finding out who they're related to, thanks to DNA-testing sites. That why he's been employed. Ash kills Elena, finds out about Simon on her phone and decides he needs to be killed too. When he finds Simon he's with Cornelius to get info about Paige from Luther's group. She was last seen on her way to Buffalo.

There's a gunfight. Ash is killed. Simon is shot while trying to save Cornelius. Didi falls, goes into intensive care. A month later, Simon finds Paige at Ingrid's bedside. He learns that she'd been at a retreat for a month. Ingrid had taken her there - she's stayed there years before. Ingrid killed Aaron because he'd got Paige into drugs. A year later Paige tells Simon that Ingrid had been made pregnant by the cult leader. She thought the baby was stillborn. In fact it was Aaron. Ingrid and Aaron had found out that they were half-siblings. Should Simon tell Ingrid that she's killed her son? No.

A page-turner. Sometimes I felt there was a twist too many. Didi needn't have cult ambitions. The Elena subplot is nearly detachable from the main story.

Other reviews

• baddiebookreviews (An aspect I struggled with in the book was this little subplot that was going on while the main plot of Simon trying to find Paige was going on. It wasn’t exactly unenjoyable or anything, but to be honest it just made me feel a bit lost throughout at least the first half of the book. ... I just genuinely had no idea throughout a good portion of the book what these two were doing here. ... Look, I mean everything does come together at the end of it all, but I just wish it was a tiny bit more clear why they were here, or what they were after)

"Don't Let Go" by Harlan Coben

An audio book.

Sexy Daisy tricks older Dale Milton into driving her home from a bar while drunk - a set up. She's done it before. Rex, a cop, gets him to stop. Dale shoots and kills him.

Inspector Napoleon (Nap) Dumas is visited by police (Bates and Stacey Reynolds). He had a twin brother Leo (who he still often refers to as "you"). Leo and girlfriend Diana died together on a train line. Suicide? Murder? His parents (French father) are dead. He volunteers at a battered wives refuge (and attacks husbands who have behaved badly). 15 years before, he used to go out with Moira. When she disappeared he put her fingerprints on the database with instructions that he should be contacted if she found. Moira is Daisy, which why the police are visiting. Nap deduces that Dale was going through a divorce and had fallen into a trap that would damage his case. But the man in the car had a fake name. Perhaps he was a hit man paid to kill Rex?

He consults a schoolfriend. The dead people belonged to the "conspiracy club" - to do with a secret missile launching site nearby. The site didn't used to be secret - school trips were arranged to it - but security was increased when it became an "agriculture research centre" (when the missiles became nuclear?). 3 months after Leo/Diana's death it closed down. Other club members were Hank (brilliant but has mental problems - he's recently disappeared) and Beth (who's been out of contact for years. She's made an effort to hide her identity but they track her down).

Diana's father Oggy has guided Leo through his career. He's a police boss now. He says that on that final night he saw that Leo was high when he collected Diana.

A rumour on social media said that Hank flashed to schoolgirls. Nap tracks down the initiators and finds out it's not true - people wanted to get rid of a wierdo. Hank is found hung from a tree, castrated. He left a tape of that night.

Ellie, the boss of the wives refuge, tells him that she suspects he's been attacking husbands. He doesn't deny it. She tells him to stop.

Nap tracks down Andy Reeves, the boss of security of the old camp. He tells Reeves about the tape. Reeves assaults him, takes him to a warehouse to torture him. Moira saves Nap, killing Reeves. She takes him to the woods to relive the night. She says they were shot at. As she ran away she heard a scream. She reported nothing and has been on the run for 15 years. They go to her room and make love. Nap's still puzzled about why the murders are re-starting after 15 years. He doesn't believe that Hank killed himself. How did Moira escape from the professional hitman?

The FBI interview him with people (including a state prosecutor) around. Nap tells everyone what he thinks. An FBI agent starts to attack him. Nap knocks him out and escapes. He and Moira drive to see Beth. She says that Leo LSD'd Diana as a joke and took her to the wood. A prisoner escaped, and Diana got caught in the crossfire. Nap meets Oggy, already suspecting the truth. Oggy says he found Diana dead and killed Leo, faking their death. He was the hitman who killed Rex (he let Daisy go because she wasn't a witness to the original incident. He killed Hank. Nap stops Oggy killing Beth, him or himself. He realises that he might have caught his vigilanty tendencies from Oggy. He plans to live with Moira,

Fast paced. A good read. Some phrases attracted my attention -

• "Daisy wore a clingy black dress with a neckline so deep it could tutor philosophy" (parodying the hard-boiled style?)
• "the play button descends with an audible click" (but aren't all clicks audible?)
• "Hank's eyes dart about like scared birds trying to find a place to land" (from Nap's PoV - which explains why it's a cliche?)

Other reviews

• Kirkus reviews (What secret could the Conspiracy Club have discovered that would remain so dangerous for so long? Sadly, the answers are neither as interesting nor even as surprising as the setup. This may be the first time most of perennially bestselling Coben’s readers will beat his hard-used hero to the solution.)

"Caught" by Harlan Coben

Prologue - Dan, separated from Genna for years (she has a 6 y.o. Carrie with her new husband. Dan babysits) was a foster child. He went to Princeton. He teaches sport in a foster home. Chinna calls him. He goes to her house. A TV crew is there, with reporter Wendy. She'd pretended to be a young girl and had asked him to come.

Marcia and Ted's oldest daughter Hayley has disappeared.

3 months later - At a pre-trial, Wendy is questioned. She'd been married to John (PhD in psychology). He had died because of Ariana Nasbro, an alcoholic who's soon to be released and is sending her letters. Their son is Charlie. She's sacked. When Dan is released, innocent, he tries to get in touch with her, saying he was set up. She visits Dan, who's in hiding. While she's with him he's shot. She recognises the murderer - Ed Greeson. She runs away, contacts the police. There's no body or weapon by the time she returns.

Pops, Wendy's right-wing motorbiking father-in-law, stays with them.

Hayley's phone is found in Dan's room.

Rumours are spread about Wendy online. She discovers that Dan regularly visited the Dean's house at Princeton. 4 out of the group of 5 he belonged to (Phil Turnbull, etc) at Princeton have been disgraced by scandal within a year. Only Kelvin, a wierdo maths genius, hasn't suffered. He's gone mad, mentioning scarface and the hunt. Wendy finds Crista living in the Dean's house. While students were on a "scavenger hunt" looking for the Dean's underpants in the house there'd been an accident and she was badly scarred. Phil took the blame because he was rich. His family paid for Crista's silence. Dan had taken pity on her and used to visit. She'd forgiven them.

When Phil recently wanted support from his friends he didn't get it. So he framed them. But he didn't framed Dan. Maybe he was really guiltly, which would stop Wendy feeling guilty about framing him. Phil kills himself.

Wendy works out that Genna planted Hayley's mobile at Dan's. Hayley had died of alcohol poisoning at a party in Genna's house. Putting the blame for her death on an already dead person seemed a tidy solution.

Pops forgives Nasbro. Ed had faked Dan's death. He's volunteering in Angola. Ed puts Wendy through to him, begging forgiveness. Which he gives.

Other reviews

• Brett Milam (Wendy’s arc from a Nancy Grace-like character to someone who does become invested in figuring out the truth ... Joblessness, directionless, hopelessness, manhood, all of these together are central themes creating the overarching theme: Fathers and husbands without direction.)

"The Woods" by Harlan Coben

An audio book

Paul Copeland was born in Russia to doctor/academic parents. They were allowed to move to the USA if they did some petty spying. When Paul was 18, at summer camp, when he was supposed to be on guard duty his sister Camille and 3 of her friends went into the woods and weren’t seen again. 2 of the bodies were found, but not Camille’s. Paul’s mother left soon after. Paul’s now 38, a county prosecutor. His wife Jane died 5 years before. He'd started a charity in her name. His father had died 6 months before - he used to dig in the wood looking for bodies. His mother left the family, unable to cope. He has a daughter, Cana.

A body’s found with Paul’s address in the clothing. It’s one of the missing people from the wood incident. He’d changed his name from Gill Perez. His parents deny that the body can be their son. Paul contacts the dead man’s girlfriend – a beautiful Indian waitress who says that the dead man told her that Paul had lied about the wood incident.

Paul is prosecuting in a court case, trying to prove that 2 rich boys raped a 15 year old mother who’s a stripper. One of the boys’ fathers tries to bribe Paul, then threatens him.

Prof Lucy Gold (her TA is Larnee) has asked her students to submit anonymous pieces. The day after Gill's body is found, One of them recounts the event in the wood. She fails at first to work out who wrote the story (which is from her and Paul’s point of view), then contacts Paul. Lucy was Paul’s first girlfriend. Her father Ira had owned the camp and had been sued by the parents of the dead kids. Lucy and Paul had been in the wood when the murders happened. Lucy’s still single and has changed her name. She’s committed 2 drink-driving offences and still drinks.

Paul wins the case. One of the rich fathers has been trying to find evidence against him. It's discovered that the husband of his sister-in-law, Greta, has taken $100,000 from the charity. Greta claims he'd just borrowed it and asks Paul to let them off. Gill's brother might be involved with crime. Paul wonders whether the people trying to damage his reputation might target the judge too, before he passes sentence. He meets Lucy. He discovers that her institutionalised father had been visited by Gill. He visits Wayne, the man accused of the murders, who claims that though he did other murders he didn't do the ones involving Paul's sister. Gill had visited him. He discovers that Larnee had submitted the story, paid by a company of private investigators. He discovers that the Indian woman is a PI, specialising in trapping men and getting info. He talks to her and she confirms his theories.

Gill's brother is disabled. His sister is a lawyer. She says thay her family might be in denial about the body being Gill's because they want to keep the money the won in the lawsuit. She says that Paul's sister wasn't killed on the night.

A woman's body is found, buried 15-30 years before. A mother. Camille? Ira tries to kill Paul then kills himself. He had killed Gill. Lucy says to Paul that he can't rescue her. She's a drunk. She'd always loved him. Gill's mother tells him that Gill and Camille escaped and Paul's mother knew. She didn't tell his father. His Russian uncle tells him that she was about to leave and live with Camille when his father killed and buried her (that's the found body). He reads his father's KGB file.

Paul decides to agree that Greta's husband had asked to borrow the money, not steal it. Having gone to Moscow then married in the States, Camille returns. Paul and Lucy are in love. He visits Wayne again. He realises that Wayne got Lucy to distract him by threatening to tell people about Ira's drug habit. The epilogue ties up some loose ends.

I enjoyed it.

Other reviews

• goodreads

"The Boy From the Woods" by Harlan Coben

Matthew (15?) is worried about the disappearance of class-mate Naomi, a loner. His father died 10 years before. He tells her gran Hestor (his father's mother) who's a TV lawyer. She (a widow) enlists the help of the local policeman and Wilde, who'd been found living in the wild many years before as an infant, and who'd been befriended since childhood by the dead man. Wilde is Matthew's godfather and secretly sleeps sometimes with Matthew's mother. He's slept with Naomi's art teacher too, who helps Naomi.

Matthew goes to rich-boy Crash Maynard's party because he suspects that Crash and his mates have something to do with Naomi's disappearance. When Crash discovers that Matthew's gran has been involved, he assaults Matthew. Wilde tries to save him but can't get through the security at first. Guns are drawn. Matthew admits to aiding the bullying of Naomi in order to mix with the in crowd.

Crash's parents are Dash and Delia, a close couple. He works in TV. Their head of security is Gavin, who works for Eggars too. Rusty Eggars (Princeton degree), an ex friend of Dash, has high political ambitions. His enemies think Dash has tapes of him from long ago which might be incriminating.

Hestor starts dating Oren (head of police who she's known for years). Wilde had always claimed that he'd been driving the car when Hestor's son died. Actually he wasn't even in the car.

Then Crash disappears. A ransom e-mail demands the lost tapes from his parents. They give a tape over, but it only shows Rusty being sexist. They're sent one of Crash's fingers. Dash sends another tape where Rusty's shown over a dead body. Rusty rigged things to make it look like a drug crime. Someone was jailed.

Gavin was the kidnapper. He thought that Rusty was a threat to civilisation.

Actually, when Rusty was Lydia's boyfriend, Lydia killed a boy during a date-rape and Rusty had cleared things up. Dash never knew.

Actually Naomi's adopted. The art teacher's her biological mother, though Naomi's only recently known that. Wilde intercepts the 2 of them at the airport. He's invited along.

Other reviews

• Erin Schreiner
• Kirkus review
• goodreads