Just One Look

Rating:
Summary: Just like a stale cigarette, you hate it, but you want it !
Review: What a frustrating disappointment. I enjoyed Coben's earlier work, but this one was truly frustrating and a let down. For those of you smokers out there, its like when you are out of smokes and then you find a stale one, you smoke it, and while you are disgusted by the taste you can't put it down.

It took me over a month to finish this book, while I usually finish these 'novels' in 2-3 days tops, and on occasion I've finished entire books on long flights to Europe.

The book is frustratingly complex, would it have killed Coben to start the book with a press clipping that describes what the Boston Massacre was all about? Why make the plot lines so complicated. I've sworn off the book and put on the bookshelf no less than 5 times, and in the interim I've read three other books. But I keep coming back to finish it..

The most impressive characters; CORA the sultry friend, Perlmutter the aloof police captain, and of course Grace. The lamest; Eric Wu, Vespa, and Jimmy X..

Recommendation; buyers beware, you will finish the book but you will hate every page of it..


Rating:
Summary: Superb!
Review: I was given 'Just one look', a superb Harland Coben thriller, by my English teacher to read over our October break - she said that we should be able to finish it by the week we go on work experience, which is a week on Monday.

I finished the book tonight. I found myself literally up every night until around 1/2am reading 50-100 pages each night. The book was ace!

Coben keeps us gripped at every stage, shivers literally run down your spine and you can't stop thinking about what will happen next. I just couldn't handle the late nights turning into sleepless nights filled with the thoughts of what would happen next.

I'd thoroughly recommend this book to all and I'll certainly be taking a read at his other books, which I'm told are equally as good.

Some may say that the last few pages of the book dragged on a little as the story came to a conclusion but, for me, it was perfect. It was a time when I literally found myself saying "ahh... that's why..."

A great read - recommended to all.

Rating:
Summary: A Real Twister of a Thriller
Review: "Scott Duncan sat across from the Killer." And so opens JUST ONE LOOK, Harlan Coben's latest thriller. Duncan is an assistant U.S. Attorney and he's meeting a killer on death row, who confesses to killing his sister, as he's trying to clear his conscious before he dies. And this confession sets in motion events that will change Grace Lawson's life forever.

Three months later when Grace picks up a package of photos at the Photomat, she finds one that doesn't belong to her. After a closer inspection, she sees that the photo is years old and that one of the people in the picture appears to be a much younger version of her husband. Later that night she shows the photo to him after scanning a copy onto her hard drive. Her husband takes the picture with him, gets in his van and drives out of Grace's life.

When she goes to the police, they act like they believe he left because of marital problems, but she knows he wouldn't have taken off and left her and the children without a good reason, so she sets about trying to find him herself with the aid of an old Mafia Don who she knows from her past. And it's secrets from her past that will ultimate solve the riddle as to why her husband left in the middle of the night and all of the other riddles Mr. Coben presents in this twister of a thriller.

I was up two nights in a row with this book, hanging on Mr. Coben's every word as I worried about Grace and whether or not she was going to get out of the tangle she was in with her life. This is one fine book that I can't recommend highly enough. Grace was sympathetic, the bad guys were bad, one was gruesome and the mystery was excellent.

Rating:
Summary: A Page Turner
Review: I have, yet, to find the perfect mystery novel, but Coben's books are fairly close. They grab your interest from the start, throw enough red herrings at you to keep you guessing, and are an easy read.

The plot in this book was well thought out. It makes sense, which is a compliment considering how many of today's mysteries leave such large holes in their plots that at the end you are more confused than satisfied.

I bought the hardback version and it was worth the price.