The Woods by
Harlan Coben
My rating:
5 of 5 stars
“Paul,” my father says to me, his voice still thick with a Russian accent. “We still need to find her.”
“We will, Dad.”Twenty years ago, Paul Copeland's sister Camille went out into the woods with three other teenagers. Two of them were later found murdered, while Camille and Gil Perez, the other teenager, were never found, but presumed dead.
“There was a murder yesterday in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan,” York said. “We found the body in an alley near 157th Street.”A homicide in present day brings it all back for Paul. A man has been found murdered. Found on him was information relating to Paul. And when Paul views the body, he gets the shock of his life when he realises that the dead man is Gil Perez.
I was looking at the arm, for the ragged scar. It was there. On his left arm. I did not gasp or any of that. It was as if part of my reality had just been pulled away and I was too numb to do anything about it. I just stood there.
“Mr. Copeland?”
“I know him,” I said.
“Who is he?”
I pointed to the picture in the magazine. “His name is Gil Perez.”Paul starts to dig for answers.
What really happened in those woods twenty years ago?
And more importantly, what happened to Camille? The case reunites him with his old flame, Lucy, who he lost after the fateful events of that night.
Lucy Silverstein had been my first real girlfriend. We’d had it so good, a fairy-tale summer romance, until that night. We never had the chance to break up—we were, instead, ripped apart by bloody murders. We were torn away while still enmeshed in each other, at a point where our love—as silly and immature as it was supposed to have been—was still rising and growing. Lucy was the past. I had given myself an ultimatum and shut her out. But the heart doesn’t really know from ultimatums. Over the years, I have tried to see what Lucy is up to, harmlessly Googling her name and stuff, though I doubt I would ever have the courage to contact her. I never found anything. My bet is, after all that happened, she’d wisely changed her name. Lucy was probably married now—like I had been. She was probably happy. I hoped so.Lucy, now a college professor, reaches out to Paul after receiving a mysterious journal alluding to events of twenty years ago.
It was the best summer of my life. At least it was until that final night. Even now I know I will never know a time like it. Weird, right? But I know. I know that I will never, ever, be that happy again. Not ever. My smile is different now. It is sadder, like it is broken and can’t be fixed. I loved a boy that summer. I will call him P for this story. He was a year older than me and a junior counselor. His whole family was at the camp. His sister worked there and his father was the camp doctor. But I barely noticed them because the moment I met P, I felt my stomach clench. I know what you’re thinking. It was just a dumb summer romance. But it wasn’t. And now I’m scared I will never love someone like I loved him. That sounds silly. That is what everyone thinks. Maybe they are right. I don’t know. I am still so young. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like I had one chance at happiness and I blew it. Paul and Lucy team up and begin digging into what really happened. I absolutely loved the chemistry between Paul and Lucy. Both straightforward and direct characters.
Paul, especially was a no-nonsense guy, and some of his comebacks left me in fits, like this one to counsel on a case he was working on:
“Talk to you? I can’t even breathe around you.”
“I won’t stand for this—”
“Shh,” I said. Then I cupped my ear with my hand. “Listen to the crinkling sound.”
“To what?”
“I think your cologne is peeling my wallpaper. If you listen closely, you can hear it. Shh, listen.”I wont go into too much detail at the risk of giving away spoilers, but I will say this - A very well written book, with the classic Harlen Coben twist at the end!
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