Eve Palmer

I watched the whole thing the way one might watch a train wreck. Can't turn away. Even when the characters continually do dumb reckless things in the most reckless ways for no reason at all. Or they don't tell people things when there's no reason not to tell them except that it will blow the plot. I assume Harlan Coben is to blame because I can't imagine they veered much from the book. I'm sure it's a struggle to write crime stories with exciting plots that you can tie up in a neat little bow at the end where everyone does exactly what you would expect them to do. Major spoiler coming so stop reading if you don't want to hear it. The way it unfolds I imagine Coben wrote it without getting into any of the character's POV...just straight third person... So he could dangle some seemingly sinister characters in sheep's clothing in front of us until that final gotcha. The protagonist did it. This is sometimes unavoidable and we come to expect a level of implausibility in order to maintain some suspense and have a satisfying ending. This story took it to a whole new level though. I'll give it two stars instead of one because in spite of all of that it was still a diversion. Except it was a diversion for all the wrong reasons.