Harlan Coben - If you go down to the woods today... (The Woods - Harlan Coben)

Member Name: jeffjen

Product:	The Woods - Harlan Coben
Date:	08/04/09 (210 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Full of twists and turns

Disadvantages: none

Regular readers of my reviews will know that I am quite a fan of Harlan Coben. An author I stumbled across recently and am now reading my way through every book I can get my hands on that he has written!

The Woods is another stand alone novel by Coben, and another fantastic thriller which I found difficult to put down until I had finished it, and had me hooked from the first page.

In 'The Woods' we are introduced to Paul 'Cope' Copeland, a widowed parent and also a County Prosector, a position that does not sit too favourably with some people.
His latest case is to get a conviction on two young students accused of date rape, one of whom has a rich and influential father who is determined he will stop at nothing to get his son off the hook, and after a few veiled threats don't work, employs a Private Investigator to try and dig up some dirt on Copeland.

It is then we find out that Copeland's sister was one of four students who went missing in the woods at summer camp 20 years previously,when Copeland was meant to be keeping watch, but instead had snuck off to be with his girlfriend. Two of the student's were found murdered and the other two, Copeland's sister Camille included, have been missing, never found.
Copeland himself was a suspect in the investigation at the time and his family were left shattered by the events.

Slowly but surely Cope's past returns to haunt him once again when he is taken to view the body of a man, found with clippings of the summer camp events and also a ring, which Cope recognise's as his sister Camille's, on his person. Could his sister still be alive?

He then begins to search again for the truth of what really happened in the Woods 20 years ago, whilst finding himself under suspicion once again.

Cope is a likeable character which I warmed to as we read how he copes with those life-changing events at summer camp, the death of his wife and his struggles being a county prosecutor and also a single father. Now his life becomes increasingly difficult in his search for the truth, and his innocence, whilst in the sub-plot the father of one of the students accused of rape is hell-bent on saving his son and himself from disgrace. The two plots mould well together as the novel moves forward at a gripping pace to it's unpredictable ending.

Cope is also re-united with ex-girlfriend from all those years ago, whose father ran the summer camp and has since suffered severe mental health problems, attributed to the traumatic events which took place.

Without spoiling the rest of the plot for you, I can say that in usual Coben fashion you are guaranteed a lot of twists and turns before the ending, which once again I could not predict!

We are also re-introduced to two other characters, county investigator Loren Muse and PI Cingle Shaker, both of which feature in another of Coben's books - 'The Innocent' which I had read previously. I find that Coben develops his characters very well, and the reader is able to make emotional connections to his characters, so it was a pleasant surprise to find these two appearing again this novel.

All in all this is was another fantastic read from start to finish, and I am certainly not tiring of reading any of Coben's books just yet! I read this in just over a day - practically ignoring my partner and my cat as my eyes were glued to the pages of this gripping thriller!

The Woods is published by Orion paperbacks 2008.
ISBN-10 0752881906
ISBN-13 978-0752881904

It is available to buy from Amazon for £5.39 new and used from 1p.

Summary: Another thriller you'll want to read in one sitting!