The Woods by Harlan Coben -- A Reader's Review

Twenty years ago, four teenagers away at summer camps went into the woods at night. Two were discovered murdered and placed in shallow graves. The other two were never found. The incident changed the lives the families, the owner of the camp and his family, and the two teens that were also in the woods that night, seeking romance, not death.

Twenty Years Later

Today, those two teens are Paul Copeland, the Essex County (New Jersey) prosecutor, a widower, and the father of six-year-old Cara, and Lucy Gold, a never-married English professor at a nearby college. Copeland's sister is one of the missing teens and Lucy's father owned the camp where the murders occurred. They have never talked since that fateful night, but now new evidence has surfaced -- curiously at the same time to both Lucy and "Cope."

A Rape Trial

Copeland is in the middle of a high profile rape trial. Chamique Johnson, a 16-year old "exotic dancer," has accused two fraternity boys from wealthy families of raping her at a frat house party. "Cope" believes the girl, who has nothing to gain except justice by filing the charges. At first the case seems straight forward, but the defendants' high-priced legal team has some surprises for the prosecutor.

New Information

As Copeland tries to win justice for Chamique Johnson, he is visited by two Manhattan homicide detectives. It seems a murder victim was found with a stack of clippings and other information about the killings twenty years earlier. When "Cope" is asked to view the body, he thinks he may know who the victim is, but how can that be true after all of these years?

A Lost Love

As "Cope" and Lucy work to make sense of everything that's happening, they are forced to acknowledge the electricity that still exists between them. Will they be able to forget the intervening years or has the past become too big an obstacle for them?

The Woods has received mixed reviews in the major media, with many claiming that there are too many implausible situations in the plot. To me, the characters needed more definition. Coben does a lot more "telling" than "showing" about his main characters. However, I found the action to be compelling -- one of those novels that will keep you up well into the night. For that reason, I'd recommend picking it up -- especially as a beach or vacation read.

About Harlan Coben

Harlan Coben is the first mystery writer to win all three of the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony awards. Best known for his Myron Bolitar series, Coben is the author of 26 mystery novels, the most recent of which is Missing You, released in the US in 2014. Coben was born in Newark, New Jersey and graduated from Amherst College. He now lives in New Jersey with his wife, a pediatrician, and their four children.