A new Harlan Coben novel? How could I resist?! Ever since I read The Stranger by this author, I have been a huge fan and have leaped at a chance to read anything by him. This time was no different. I grabbed a copy as soon as I could and devoured it in one day. Here is what I thought…
Former special-ops pilot Maya is at the funeral of her husband, Joe. Not only does she have to deal with the fact that he was murdered, she is also responsible for their two-year-old daughter. At the suggestion of a friend, Maya puts a nanny cam in the home so that she can have some piece of mind about the security of her daughter. But then she sees an unimaginable image on the camera: her husband Joe playing with their daughter, two weeks after the funeral. Is it really him or is it just a figment of her imagination? To find out what’s really going on, Maya will need to confront deep secrets in her past and that of her husband to face the truth about who he is – and who she is, too.
In comparison to other books by Harlan Coben, this one fell a little short of the mark. The storyline and intrigue were interesting but the reveal of it all was just a bit unremarkable; it seemed ridiculously simple for all of the hype and suspense that led up to it. I also found the character of Maya to be extremely unrealistic. She may have been in the war and may be suffering from PTSD but that doesn’t mean she needed to be devoid of a personality. At the end of the novel, I was left wondering what was the point of it all. Unfortunately, this novel just missed the mark on way too many levels and I’m going to have to give it a pass. I will continue to read more by this author and I encourage you all to do the same… but maybe skip this one?
Happy reading ~