Missing You. Finished 8-1-14, rating 4/5, thriller, pub. 2014

Unabridged audio read by January Lavoy. 11 hours, 54 minutes

It’s a profile, like all the others on the online dating site. But as NYPD Detective Kat Donovan focuses on the accompanying picture, she feels her whole world explode, as emotions she’s ignored for decades come crashing down on her. Staring back at her is her ex-fiancé Jeff, the man who shattered her heart—and who she hasn’t seen in 18 years.

Kat feels a spark, wondering if this might be the moment when past tragedies recede and a new world opens up to her. But when she reaches out to the man in the profile, her reawakened hope quickly darkens into suspicion and then terror as an unspeakable conspiracy comes to light, in which monsters prey upon the most vulnerable. 

As the body count mounts and Kat’s hope for a second chance with Jeff grows more and more elusive, she is consumed by an investigation that challenges her feelings about everyone she ever loved—her former fiancé, her mother, and even her father, whose cruel murder so long ago has never been fully explained. With lives on the line, including her own, Kat must venture deeper into the darkness than she ever has before, and discover if she has the strength to survive what she finds there.

from Goodreads

I can count on Harlan Coben for solid thrillers, sometimes even stellar.  He always seems to have the latest cultural fad at the ready for his standalone books.  In this one it starts with online dating but goes much more up-to-date than that (I don’t want to spoil anything) and the results are very good.

I loved Kat as a heroine, what made her great as a detective also make her care about Brandon, who was concerned about his missing mother.  Everyone else had blown him off but Kat was willing to dig in and she already had a lot (too much?) on her plate since she was investigating her father’s death years before.  There were many storylines, but Kat was able to handle them and I liked her.

With that being said, I finished this a month ago and as I sat down to write this review I couldn’t remember a thing about it.  That says  a lot right? And not just that my memory isn’t what it should be!  After reading a few reviews I remembered but I admit that I expect more than that from Coben. I  can say with all honesty that I don’t think you can go wrong with any of his thrillers, but some are better than others.  This might not be one of the stellar ones (much like this review) but it was completely satisfying.

My mom bought this one and loaned it to me.