The Woods Mass Market

The Woods Mass Market

Author: Visit Amazon's Harlan Coben Page | Language: English | ISBN: 0451221958 | Format: EPUB

The Woods Mass Market Description

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of this disappointing stand-alone from bestseller Coben (Promise Me), Paul "Cope" Copeland, acting county prosecutor for Essex County, N.J., and Lucy Gold, his long-lost summer camp love, are still haunted by a fateful night, decades earlier, when their nighttime tryst allowed some younger campers, including Cope's sister, to venture into the nearby forest, where they apparently fell victim to the Summer Slasher, a serial killer. Cope's intense focus on a high-profile rape prosecution of some wealthy college students shifts after one of the Slasher's victims, whose body was never found, turns up as a recent corpse in Manhattan, casting doubt on the official theory of the old case. Cope's own actions on that night again come under scrutiny, even as the highly placed fathers of the men he's prosecuting work to unearth as many skeletons as possible to pressure him into dropping the rape case. Less than compelling characters fail to compensate for a host of implausibilities. Hopefully, Coben will return to form with his next book. (Apr.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

In this stand-alone legal thriller, Harlan Coben presents a riveting courtroom drama, creates riveting players, and delves into family secrets, love, loss, mistakes, and betrayal. A few critics noted that while The Woods falls into Coben's typical formula—a past crime affects innocent people in the present—it still comes off as fresh. The trial scenes, Cope's ruminations on what really happened that night, and the back-and-forth narration are particularly well done. Only the Washington Post faulted the novel's cheap thrills, improbable revelations, and awkward conclusion. Nevertheless, few readers will remain unaffected by its emotional heft.

See all Editorial Reviews

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Mass Market Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Signet; Reprint edition (April 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0451221958
ISBN-13: 978-0451221957
Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Originality is always a prized quality in a novel, but sometimes you just need a predictable, unchallenging, fast-food sort of book for a hectic time. That's when I turn to the "thrillers" shelf and writers like Harlan Coben.

"The Woods" is the story of Essex County Prosecutor Paul Copeland and his twenty-year-old family tragedy. His sister, Camille, and three other campers went into the woods one summer night; two bodies were found, but not his sister's. The tragedy tore Paul's family apart, and he never came to terms with his role as the camp counselor who should have been keeping watch.

When the other missing camper turns up dead -- but recently so -- Paul's world spins out of control again. He's embroiled in the rape trial of two fraternity boys and their families will do anything to keep the boys out of prison. The threat to Paul's family and career is vicious -- unrealistically so, I thought, but maybe I'm naive in the wicked ways of the world.

Coben writes with a satisfying assurance and the characters are reasonably well-defined, though the women are strangely stereotyped and hard to know. Paul Copeland moves plausibly through the well-paced story. While I didn't care passionately about his outcome, I did wish him well -- assuming that everything would be happily resolved, as it usually is in this type of book. Coben surprised me with an ambiguous ending, which I considered to be a good thing.

The complicated plot is developed and wrapped up well, a real strength of this book, though there are some elements that fit poorly in the story.

I'm a big fan of Harlan Coben. I've read five of his novels, including his newest, THE WOODS. Each novel is captivating and thrilling, full of twists and turns. In his latest, Paul Copeland is the Essex County, New Jersey prosecuter. He is knee deep in the middle of a rape case when he gets the call from some detectives in New York. It seems they believe Copeland can help them with the details of an unsolved murder, a murder that may relate to the brutal slaying of Copeland's sister 20 years ago.

Twenty years ago at an idealic summer camp, four teenagers were brutally murdered, including Copeland's sister Camille. The killer is behind bars, and Copeland is just now getting on with his life, learning to raise his six year old daughter alone after his wife's death from cancer. Lucy Gold, a professor at a nearby college and Copeland's ex-girlfriend, begins receiving a journal in a creative writing class from one of her students. Turns out that journal is recreating in vivid detail the night of those murders. Who could be writing the journal? How could they know about that night? Loren Muse, a holdover from a previous Coben novel, has a strong role as Copeland's chief investigator.

As is typical with Coben novels, he throws a lot at you, and most of it sticks. There are twists right down to the last page, and all of the plot loose ends are resolved. This is the first novel where Coben's novel seems formulaic and not unique. He seems to enjoy the theme of people once thought dead possibly being alive. Copeland's daughter and deceased wife really play no role in the story. The Russian, KGB angle also seemed contrived and unnecessary. Still, Coben has the knack for making the implausible plausible, and having fun with even the most far-fetched scenario.

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