Book Reviews, Comments & Stories, Quotes, & Poetry & More
"Connections and Why They Matter"
Most of what happens in our life will spark a connection. Life connects with what has been found in books. Books connect with what happens in life. Use the connections to help you see more clearly. A love of reading and writing is what motivated the creation of this blog. Thank you for coming to the blog.
The private investigator’s name is Wilde. As a very young boy, he was found by some hikers in the Ramapo Mountain State Forest 24 years ago. He didn’t remember ever not being in the forest and didn’t know his name but somehow had learned English. Taking the name Wilde seemed logical.
Now in his 40s, he has a godson, Sweet Water High School student Matthew Crimstein, who is worried about a classmate Naomi Pine who has gone missing. Wilde is trying to help but learns that Naomi’s problems may be linked to another high school associate, Crash Maynard, whose TV producer father, Dash Maynard, is close friends with reality TV star–turned–presidential hopeful Rusty Eggers.
Naomi is found but then a week later disappears again, and about the same time, Crash disappears too. They are assumed to be together, but a ransom note arrives and demands incriminating videotapes of Rusty Eggers that Dash and Delia Maynard have hidden for 30 years.
Wilde seems a little weak as the investigator in a Coben plot, but the story holds our attention and brings some big surprises at the end.
The Boy from the Woods Quotes.
Matthew had learned an awful truth: You grow immune to cruelty. It has become the norm. You accept it. You move on. - Chapter 1
Someone once told Hester that memories hurt, the good ones most of all. As she got older, Hester realized just how true that was. - Chapter 3
Laila was gorgeous. There was no way around it. She dazzled in the fitted gray business suit that hugged where it should, which in her case was everywhere. - Chapter 3
beating in her chest. Age was a funny thing. You're in high school again when your heart starts beating like this. - Chapter 4
A child comes out hardwired. That was what you learned as a parent - that your kid is who he is and what he is and that you, as a parent, significantly overstate your importance in his development. A dear friend once told her that being a parent is like being a car mechanic - you can repair the car and take care of the car and keep the car on the road, but you can't fundamentally change the car. If a sports car drives into your garage for repairs, it isn’t driving out an SUV. Same with kids. Chapter 5,
The story starts with Ray taking a picture and then pondering what he thinks he sees on the ground, and the result is a view of the mystery itself.
“Sometimes, in that split second, when Ray Levine snapped a picture and lost the world in the strobe from his flashbulb, he saw the blood. He knew, of course, that it was only in his mind’s eye, but at times, like right now, the vision was so real he had to lower his camera and take a good hard look at the ground in front of him.”
Megan Pierce, a former stripper who went by the name of Cassie, had left her life and relationship with Ray Levine behind her right after her client Steward Green disappeared and was assumed dead. She rebuilt her life, becoming a mother of two children, married to a successful lawyer, and living in suburbia.
Megan, who seems bored with her new life, goes to a business meeting in Atlantic City and, during a break, goes to her former club, La Crème. She meets up with and learns from Lorraine Griggs, a former colleague, that Stewart Green might still be alive after 17 years and that on the same date he disappeared, Carlton Flynn has just vanished in ways that seem to tie in with Green’s disappearance.
Detective Jack Broome is working on a group of cold cases that all have similarities to the Steward Green case, and his path has led him to search for Cassie, now Megan. The most current victim’s father has hired two young killers, Ken and Barbie, to search for the killer of Carlton Flynn. The entry of these two sadistic killers into the plot brings a twisted, scary threat to unexpected players in the field.
Coben’s story of what comes from looking into cold cases is not new, and in some ways, this plot is predictable, but the story has some real irony, and it holds your interest with surprises coming to the very end.
