Summer

20 May 2008

THE WOODS - Harlan Coben

THE WOODS is not gonna be a favorite Coben book with me. It may be it's because it's my first stand-alone of his, but I really think it was because it's a very convoluted wrapped-around-the axle-multiple-stories-going-on for me to digest comfortably. I did read it and finish it, there is enough of the Harlan charm in there to keep me going, but I'd be disappointed if I read another of his stand-alones that read to this enth degree of complexity.

The book begins with a mass murder in the woods of a summer camp that happened 20 years ago. The main character, Paul Copeland, is the state prosecutor and the brother of a girl who was involved. Cope, his nickname, is involved in a court case against two college students accused of rape. This leads to the fathers of these two students going into Cope's background which not only involves the past mass murder, but a past of family members involved in the KGB. It continues to get more complex as the story continues. No one is as they appear, everyone is telling lies to cover the past and I was glad to finally finish the book and get ready to read something to cleanse my palate.
I give it two beans...




4 comments:

Anonymous said...

For some reason I thought you read it way back when for the S/T group read.

My memory holds as much information as my bladder these days...which isn't much!

Vickie said...

J Kaye: *GRIN*

Joy said...

Bummer! I actually liked this one. Well, shake it off and move on! :)

Vickie said...

Joy: I didn't not like it, just didn't like it as much as I thought I would. I don't finish books I don't like, so there was something there. Harlan has me no matter what. = )