FROM THE BLURBAs a boy, Will Klein had a hero: his older brother, Ken. Then, on a warm suburban night in the Kleins affluent New Jersey neighborhood, a young womana girl Will had once lovedwas found brutally murdered in her familys basement. The prime suspect: Ken Klein. With the evidence against him overwhelming, Ken simply vanished. And when his shattered family never heard from Ken again, they were sure he was gone for good.Now eleven years have passed. Will has found proof that Ken is alive. And this is just the first in a series of stunning revelations as Will is forced to confront startling truths about his brotherand himself. As a violent mystery unwinds around him, Will knows that he must press his search all the way to the end. Because the most powerful surprises are yet to come.As the author says, ...the thing about clichés is that they're dead on. I can so live with that. Some of them made good sense in this book.I loveeeeeeed this murder mystery, suspense thriller. Messing around with the sleuthing readers, the author knew where to pull the punches to get us disorientated and lost on the wrong tracks of facts. Surprise after surprise! Oh myyyyyy, it was brilliant.Trivial things delighted me, such as the normalcy of their lives. They engaged in ordinary things, eating salads, cheese omelettes, home or french fries, and enjoy venti iced lattés or frappuccinos. It was necessary to escape the stark reality of murder, betrayal, revenge and destroyed lives. Ken Klein had been the fiery tennis player, John Asselta the psycho wrestler, McGuane the wow-'em charmer and student council president. Three friends, natives and products from the Livingston suburb, New Jersey. Popular, intelligent, ambitious. Whatever could go wrong in these three friends' lives, when the well-watered lawns, split-level constructed homes, Little Leagues, soccer moms, piano lessons, Four Squares courts, and parent-teacher conferences, acted as some sort of wolfsbane to supposedly ward of evil?Evil was suppose to manifest in jails, where a melting pot of people were captured: a potpourri of inhumanity that inhabits this mini-United Nations. Ten different languages could be heard at the same time. There were shades of skin color that could inspire the people at Crayola. There were baseball caps and turbans and toupees and even a fez. Into this Crayola of colorful cultures, characters such as Yogi Squares the Yoga guru could be found. And Sheila, Nora, Katy, Wanda, Agents Fisher and Joey Pistillo. A place like Covenant house could exist where young teenagers were safely rescued from the streets.All of them had their stories to tell. A twist of fate brought them all together in the hunt for truth and reconciliation. Some lost. Some won. Nobody walked away unscathed. "The ugliest of truths, in the end, was still better than the prettiest of lies."A fantastic read! It was as much an emotional fairground parade as it was a Bruce Springsteen concert of mayhem and revolt. Even the reader got caught up in the fast moving rhythms of a mesmerized trance. The suspense was that good. The ending amazing.

There were so many reversals in this complicated plot, I ended up just feeling numb instead of thrilled. Coben does well to get you invested with the hero, Will, an ordinary, good hearted guy who works in a youth shelter and lives with someone he loves. The shadow over him and his family is the disappearance of his brother Ken nearly a decade before in connection with the murder of Will's ex-girlfriend. Suddenly his current girlfriend splits and violent friends of his brother and the police come to brutally press him in their search for Ken. As Will pursues the mystery, he implausibly overcomes many dangerous situations and each truth he grasps tends to be dashed with successive twists, leaving me feel a bit manipulated. Yet Coben's knack with characters that aren't simply evil incarnate is impessive enough to make me want to give him another try.

Yet another loved-one-presumed-dead-but-look-may-still-be-alive-and-in-hiding story from Harlan Coben. I'm about 25% through, and may ditch it. It's just not grabbing me. Also not buying into the constant over-the-top emo from the main character. Could be I'm over Harlan Coben's writing style and plotlines, since neither one ever changes. Same story, different book.UPDATE: I'm out. Made it halfway through, but it just wasn't worth reading any further.

WOW! That's the first thing I said to my self after finishing this book. Twist after Twist after Twist. Really a good book.

This was my first experience with Harlan Coben and I don't think I'm clamoring to read another. I didn't hate this. It was good enough entertainment for a couple of days. But I can't recommend it.Characters are one-dimensional. But they almost have to be. Revealing too much of each character wouldn't allow Harlan Coben to change what all the characters are and what they stand for and what they'r emotivated by in the last twenty pages. Seriously, this was one of those novels where a new revelation happens every two pages for the entire span of the last forty pages. No, I'm not a good guy. I'm the bad guy! So am I! So is she! I was just joshing. I'm a good guy! I've been hiding my motivation all along so that I can pull this gun out and shoot the real bad guy! With that said, Coben's plot has a break-neck pace. I appreciated that. It made the whole affair finish up that much faster.