Just One Look by Harlan Coben

Wow! This is the first book I’ve read by Harlan Coben and it had more twists than a braiding booth at renaissance faire. People Magazine touts on the back cover that the “only plausible reason for setting this book down is to make sure your front door is locked and double-bolted”. Another valid reason is if you stay up so late reading it that you’re dozing off in your chair. Not that I ever did that. Certainly not twice.

But Just One Look has enough energy and action to keep your pulse racing no matter the time of day or night. I’ve never read a book that kept the twists coming up to the last page.

Grace Lawson is a happily married suburban housewife, with two kids, minivan, idyllic neighborhood. When she picks up a roll of picture developed at a Photomart, she finds an old photograph that looks as if it was taken at least fifteen years prior. The strange thing about the photo is that one of the people in it is her husband. One of the others, a girl, has her face crossed out.

After she shows it to her husband that evening, he drives off in their minivan and disappears with the photo.

As she delves into the mystery, she finds her own past becoming entwined with her present dilemma. Fifteen years ago, Grace was nearly killed in a stampede at a rock concert in Boston. The tragedy shook the nation and Grace became the face of the victims. The media followed her recovery and the trial and conviction of the man accused of firing the shots that instigated the panic. Those ghosts reappear as she investigates her husband’s vanishing.

Coben has an amazing knack to spin several seemingly unrelated stories and tie them all together to one event, the whole crux of the mystery.

I found this to be an exciting, fast-paced page turner of an action thriller. It moves at a breath-taking speed and has surprises on every page.