The Woods

Another excellent read. Harlan Coben is one of my favourite authors and I have enjoyed all of his books.Always a good storyline with believable characters and keeps you interested from start to finish.Looking forward to many more.

Wow. Why have I never read this stuff before? (1/2 people found this helpful)

Picked this up to while away a boring afternoon and was totally hooked. I don't normally go in for American thriller writers but thought I'd give it a go.

The storyline gets you instantly hooked and you can relate to most of the characters, even empathising with the main character and the rape victim.

There are two stories going on at the same time, but it doesn't get confused or hard to keep up with.

I would definitely recommend this book and am currently searching out his other titles.

If You Like Thrillers, You'll Love this Book (4/5 people found this helpful)

Harlan Coben continues to prove that he is one of the best thriller writers around at the moment. A page turner is a much used phrase but in this case it is really appropriate. The author's books are always so well structured and his character's well rounded. He is obviously comfortable with his style and ability and this transmits itself to the reader making the reading of his books sheer pleasure from start to finish. Coben has now got a string of best selling crime novels behind him and all I can say is that I hope he continues to write for many years to come. The author lives in New Jersey with his wife and four children.

Twenty years ago, Paul Copeland's life was to change forever. He lost his one and only sister when four teenagers disappeared from the woods near summer camp. What was even worse was that he should have been looking out for them. None of the four were ever seen again.

Now Paul's life has been thrown into turmoil. A dead body has turned up at the city morgue. Strange as it may seem it is the adult corpse of one of the boys who went missing 20 years ago. This raises a question for Paul: Could his long lost sister still be alive? Or is the thought too ridiculous to contemplate . . .

It's bally brilliant (10/13 people found this helpful)

Another reviewer and I commented on the same book (dreadful piece of "writing" called Severed) and we disagreed on it somewhat, and on his recommendation I read this, my first Coben novel. I totally owe him a beer, because The Woods is fantastic.

The term "unputdownable" is used a lot (and horrible grammar), but this book really is. Unputdownable, that is. The grammar is top-notch. It's also funny. That came as a very pleasant surprise. The lead character, Paul "Cope" Copeland is a marvellously sardonic fellow, and in several places throughout, he has a few one-liners which made me laugh out loud.

The style of writing initially threw me a little. Coben is a fan of brief sentences; he often strings together 6 or 7 of them that only contain 3 or 4 words. It reads as a pot-boiler in some respects, and at first I found it incongruous. But as you begin to understand his characters more, you see that the rapid-fire dialogue and sentence structure fits perfectly.

All of his characters are extremely likeable and 3-dimensional, which is a feat considering how many of them there are. Even the bit-players of the piece are intriguing. For example, there is a coroner/pathologist called Tara O'Neill who features in only 2 scenes, but she's absolutely fascinating. (In fact, I'd rather like to see a book solely about her.)

The twists aren't quite as twisty as I expected. But, actually, for a good reason. The story is so involving, and the reader so drawn in, I spent time thinking up every possibility, such was my intrigue. So, when one of those possibilities turned out to be what happens next, I was a little let down. But that's not the fault of the author. It's my own. Pondering every conceivable answer is akin to reading the back of the book first. Terrible bookiquette.

It's also a jolly nice love story, on two levels. Primarily about re-discovering a lost love. How many of us have wondered what's become of our very first love? Would we still connect? Would we fall in love all over again were we to meet? These are questions dealt with extensively in The Woods, and it's rich material.

But it's also a love story in terms of family. Virtually every single chatacter in this book does something inconceivable in order to protect a family member. I imagine family is something that is desperately important to the author, and his love of family, as a structure, has translated itself consistently on these pages. Family is at the very heart of The Woods. It's also the veins, arteries and gloopy bits.

So while this is, ostensibly, a rip-roaring thriller (one which, incidentally, has no bad language whatsoever, and is none the poorer for that) it is mostly about family and how important it is.

The Woods is an excellent piece of writing, and am now biting at the bit to read everything he's ever written. I don't care if it's graffiti on walls - it'd probably still be brilliant.

Consistently good, if not better. (6/10 people found this helpful)

I always look forward to the latest Bolivar story but, whilst waiting, I haven't yet found a Harlan Coben novel which doesn't grip the reader right up to the end. This one is no exception. It's a fairly long book by today's thriller standards but, not surprisingly, the storyline flows and you just need to turn the pages.

I think one of the main attributes of the author is that he enables the reader to become involved in his story, as though you are there watching it unfold without knowing just quite how it will turn out. Is this novel successful? I'll just say that I have already placed my order for 'Hold Tight'!

Harlan Coben

Reader Reviews:

mystery lover (0/0 people found this helpful)

Wow. Why have I never read this stuff before? (1/2 people found this helpful)

If You Like Thrillers, You'll Love this Book (4/5 people found this helpful)

It's bally brilliant (10/13 people found this helpful)

Consistently good, if not better. (6/10 people found this helpful)

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