Don't Let Go: A Novel

by Harlan Coben

Overview

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR AND CREATOR OF THE HIT NETFLIX DRAMA THE STRANGER

With unmatched suspense and emotional insight, Harlan Coben explores the big secrets and little lies that can destroy a relationship, a family, and even a town in this powerful new thriller.

Suburban New Jersey Detective Napoleon “Nap” Dumas hasn't been the same since senior year of high school, when his twin brother Leo and Leo’s girlfriend Diana were found dead on the railroad tracks—and Maura, the girl Nap considered the love of his life, broke up with him and"disappeared"without explanation. For fifteen years, Nap has been searching, both for Maura and for the real reason behind his brother's death. And now, it looks as though he may finally find what he's been looking for. 

When Maura's fingerprints turn up in the rental car of a suspected murderer, Nap embarks on a quest for answers that only leads to more questions—about the woman he loved, about the childhood friends he thought he knew, about the abandoned military base near where he grew up, and mostly about Leo and Diana—whose deaths are darker and far more sinister than Nap ever dared imagine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781524742256
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/27/2018
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	87,096
Product dimensions:	5.27(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.74(d)

About the Author

Harlan Coben is the #1 New York Times and international bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including I Will Find You, The Match, Win, Fool Me Once, Stay Close, and The Stranger, as well as the award-winning Myron Bolitar series. Coben has more than eighty million books in print in more than forty languages worldwide, and several of his novels have been made into Netflix series. The winner of Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards, he lives in New Jersey.

Hometown:

Ridgewood, New Jersey

Date of Birth:

January 4, 1962

Place of Birth:

Newark, New Jersey

Education:

B.A. in political science, Amherst College, 1984

Website:

http://www.harlancoben.com

Read an Excerpt

Daisy wore a clingy black dress with a neckline so deep it could tutor philosophy.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Don't Let Go"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Harlan Coben.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

Praise for Harlan Coben and Don't Let Go

“Harlan Coben is a folk poet of the suburbs and his well-tuned new mystery, Don’t Let Go, shows why. Coben does his usual professional job on the central mystery...but his greater talent lies in his warmhearted descriptions of life in places like Westbridge.”—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“Ernest Hemingway could have learned a tip or two from Coben’s direct and punchy writing style. And Coben deftly intersperses his action sequences with observations about human behavior.”—Steve Forbes, Forbes online 

“Harlan Coben is the modern master of the hook-and-twist luring you in on the first page...only to shock you on the last.”—Dan Brown

“Simply one of the all-time greats—pick up any one of his thrillers and you’ll find a riveting, twisty, surprising story with a big, beating heart at its core.”—Gillian Flynn

“Outstanding...Coben keeps Nap and the reader blindly guessing as he peels back layers of deceit reaching back 15 years, revealing nesting dolls of deadly secrets.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Harlan Coben's addictive crime novels keep readers on the edge of their seat. Get ready for twists, turns, reversals, and you'd-never-guess-it plot twists. His thrillers are virtuoso mysteries that expose the dark side of familiar settings. Prepare yourself for relatable characters, crackling prose, and shocking endings.”—Reader's Digest “The Most Binge-Worthy Authors of All Time”

“[Nap] is both endearing and sometimes quite witty. Coben is the master of these types of characters while exposing the hidden layers of suburbia.”—Associated Press

“[A] shattering tour de force of a classic mystery wrapped in the fabric of the kind of...thriller nobody writes better.”—Providence Journal

“Harlan Coben is one of the best suspense novelists out there today.”—The Huffington Post

“Coben knows how to deliver an exciting thriller expertly. His latest novel is no exception.”—Library Journal 

“Certain teams (the Yankees), performers (Springsteen), and shows (The Sopranos) exist at such a rarified level of excellence that our expectations become unreasonable...Harlan Coben...belongs in this rarified category.”—Newark Star-Ledger

“You won’t be able to put it down once you open it....Get this book now.”—Bookreporter.com

From the Publisher

Harlan Coben is a folk poet of the suburbs and his well-tuned new mystery, Don't Let Go, shows why…Coben does his usual professional job on the central mystery…but his greater talent lies in his warmhearted descriptions of life in places like Westbridge.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

★ 07/31/2017
New Jersey cop Nap Dumas, the hero of this outstanding standalone from bestseller Coben (Fool Me Once), is shocked to learn that fingerprints at the scene of a crime—the shooting death of a fellow cop and high school classmate during a traffic stop—belong to Maura Wells, Nap’s high school sweetheart, who disappeared 15 years earlier. Maura went missing at the same time that Nap’s twin, Leo, and Leo’s girlfriend, Diana Styles, were hit and killed by a train. Maura’s reappearance sends Nap to see Augie Styles, Diana’s father, a police captain and his mentor. Nap comes to suspect that the deaths of Leo and Diana may not have been an accident and are connected to a secret military base that they and a few other students called the Conspiracy Club were investigating at the time. When Nap begins tracking the surviving club members, it gradually becomes clear that someone or something is now trying to eliminate them. Coben keeps Nap and the reader blindly guessing as he peels back layers of deceit reaching back 15 years, revealing nesting dolls of deadly secrets. Five-city author tour. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest Literary Agency (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

04/01/2017
Since he's the author of ten consecutive No. 1 New York Times best sellers and a winner of the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony awards to boot, it would be nice to know plot details here. No such luck, but I can report that it's a stand-alone.

Library Journal

2017-07-17
A pair of present-day murders bring the past alive for a New Jersey cop still mourning the twin brother he buried 15 years ago.The last few weeks of high school often bring out the graduates' appetites for unaccustomed risky behavior. But no one in suburban Westbridge has ever been able to explain what Leo Dumas and his girlfriend, cheerleader Diana Styles, were doing on the railroad tracks that made them get hit by a train or why Maura Wells, the girlfriend of Leo's twin, Napoleon, "Nap," chose that night to disappear. Now, in one of those sudden lightning flashes only Coben (Home, 2016, etc.) could have thought of, that night comes roaring back with the discovery of Maura's fingerprints in a car driven by a murdered Pennsylvania cop. Sgt. Rex Canton was shot during what would have been a routine drunk-driving stop if Rex hadn't been off duty and specifically targeting the man who shot him. Detective Nap Dumas, who still regularly talks to his dead twin, knows he can't work an out-of-state homicide, even one that links Maura, his vanished girlfriend, once again to Rex, one of his high school classmates. In fact the connection is even deeper, for Leo, Diana, Maura, and Rex were all members of Westbrook High's Conspiracy Club, a group evidently designed to nurture the naturally anti-establishment paranoia of adolescents through the ages. When one of the club's two surviving members—Hank Stroud, a math genius who's been wandering the streets of Westbridge for years—is also murdered, Nap resolves to question the other survivor, Beth Lashley, who's now married, living in Ann Arbor, and practicing cardiology. He soon finds that Beth's resolve is equal to his own: she's separated from her husband, announced a professional sabbatical, and gone AWOL. What secret could the Conspiracy Club have discovered that would remain so dangerous for so long? Sadly, the answers are neither as interesting nor even as surprising as the setup. This may be the first time most of perennially bestselling Coben's readers will beat his hard-used hero to the solution.

Kirkus Reviews