Run Away

January 1, 2019
A Manhattan money manager who once had it all is threatened with losing most of it in Coben's latest greased-lightning domestic thriller.Things haven't been that great for Simon Greene ever since his daughter, Paige, dropped out of college and disappeared. But his world turns much darker the day that, following a tip, he sees her playing guitar in Central Park and tries to talk to her. Paige, clearly strung out on drugs, takes off, and the closest Simon comes to catching her is punching her companion, junkie Aaron Corval, in the face. His attack, captured on the phone videos of passers-by, goes viral, and he's rebuked by millions of strangers. Three months later, Bronx Homicide Detective Isaac Fagbenle turns up in Simon's office asking questions about the murder of Aaron, who vanished instead of sticking around to press charges. Simon and his pediatrician wife, Ingrid, go to visit the crime scene in the hope of picking up Paige's trail, and moments after one of Aaron's scuzzball neighbors warns them, "Even if you find her, this story won't have a happy ending," bullets fly, sending Ingrid to the hospital in a coma. Meanwhile, Chicago PI Elena Ramirez is hired to find the missing adopted son of wealthy Sebastian Thorpe III, and a mysterious pair named Ash and Dee Dee are executing a laid-off meat packer in Boston and a tattoo artist in suburban New Jersey. Clearly all this mayhem is somehow connected, and readers spoiled by Coben's long history of triple-barreled thrillers (Don't Let Go, 2017, etc.) will be turning the pages with bated breath. But the broadly hinted connection, a Maine religious commune to which Dee Dee professes undying loyalty, is more cartoonish than compelling, and the alternating chapters recounting the investigations of Simon and Elena dilute the suspense instead of intensifying it. By the time the double-twist payoff arrives, fans will be torn between dissatisfaction and relief.In seeking to extend his formidable range, Coben overreaches: the far-flung complications feel forced and schematic rather than nightmarish. Wait till next year.

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February 1, 2019

Simon Greene sits on a bench in New York's Central Park watching a strung-out street performer struggle through each song. It's painful to watch, as the young woman is badly in need of help but will likely not accept it. She is Simon's runaway daughter Paige. This encounter, their first in six months, does not go well. Paige runs off and Simon has a physical altercation with her scumbag junkie boyfriend Aaron, leading to claims that Wall Street is now attacking the homeless. Then Aaron turns up dead. This is only the beginning of a twisty, edge-of-your-seat thriller and events that rapidly begin to spiral out of control. Simon must decide how far he'll go to save his child, plunging into a world ruled by drugs, secrets, missing people, murder, and more. To say more would ruin the sheer genius of a puzzle Coben (Don't Let Go; Home) has crafted. He maintains many threads perfectly, ultimately weaving them in unexpected ways. VERDICT An absolutely brilliant, taut thriller that begs to be read in one sitting. [See Prepub Alert, 10/1/18.]--Katie Lawrence, Grand Rapids, MI

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2018
Coben, internationally best-selling author and a specialist in the domestic thriller, signals the dilemma facing his financial-analyst hero in the title: his daughter is a runaway, and, to find her, he must confront all the entanglements and perils of a runaway's life. Coben, once again, shows a well-constructed, lucky life blown open by fate. Financial analyst Simon Greene and his wife, a pediatrician, are well-off Manhattanites with three children. The chasm in their lives was caused by their 21-year-old daughter, Paige, being seduced into drugs and a vagrant lifestyle by a man 10 years older. Simon discovers Paige panhandling in Central Park one day, tries to talk with her, punches her slimy boyfriend, and is arrested and charged with assault. This starts the suspense spiral of the book, which only grows more tense when the boyfriend is found murdered, and Simon becomes the chief suspect. Though marred a little by too much description, which slows the narrative, this remains solid Coben, with clever plotting and dead-on character sketches (Simon's feisty lawyer is a hoot).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)