The Stranger

by Harlan Coben

Overview

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A secret destroys a man’s perfect life and sends him on a collision course with a deadly conspiracy in this shocking thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben.

The Stranger appears out of nowhere, perhaps in a bar, or a parking lot, or at the grocery store. Their identity is unknown. Their motives are unclear. Their information is undeniable. Then they whisper a few words in your ear and disappear, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world...

Adam Price has a lot to lose: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two wonderful sons, and all the trappings of the American Dream: a big house, a good job, a seemingly perfect life.

Then he runs into the Stranger. When he learns a devastating secret about his wife, Corinne, he confronts her, and the mirage of perfection disappears as if it never existed at all. Soon Adam finds himself tangled in something far darker than even Corinne's deception, and realizes that if he doesn't make exactly the right moves, the conspiracy he’s stumbled into will not only ruin lives—it will end them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451414137
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/09/2016
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	38,262
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.00(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

Chapter 1
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Stranger"
by .
Copyright © 2016 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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What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for Missing You

"This is a dive-in, lose-sleep and miss-your-bus-stop reading experience."
— Associated Press

"Missing You is another winner in Coben's stack of winners."
— Huffington Post

"Coben's story twists tight: It will leave you eyeing your computer, wondering what horrors might awair the next time you log on."
—People

"Once again, Coben has expertly constructed and then dismantled a time bomb of a plot."
—Booklist

"Once again, Coben has brilliantly used a current trend, in this case Internet dating, to create a can't-put-it-down thriller."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Coben... has written another twisty ripped-from-the-headlines page-turning stand-alone that could be his best yet."
— Library Journal (starred review)

"The setup is irresistible, the twists generously piled on, and the climax suitably pulse-pounding..." 
— Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Stranger

“Coben describes Adam’s search for the truth behind these allegations—and the identity of the person who made them—with masterly skill, springing surprises, raising stakes, seamlessly integrating other victims of the ‘stranger’ into Adam’s tale. He’s also a smooth, funny writer.”—New York Times Book Review

“This page-turner is one stranger that readers will want to meet.”—Associated Press

“Seamless storytelling at a breathtaking pace.”—Houston Chronicle 

“Coben’s latest stand-alone is a great story for people who like to examine the ephemeral nature of those strings that bind our dreams to our reality.”—Library Journal

“The Stranger isn’t just a great thriller, it’s a stunningly effective, probative novel about one man’s search, essentially, for his own identity...Flat-out great and not to be missed.”—Providence Journal

“Another suspenseful thriller whose gripping and intricate plot is completely plausible, and chilling.”—The Huffington Post

“Thoroughly entertaining.”—Publishers Weekly

“Coben can always be relied on to generate thrills from the simplest premises, but his finest tales maintain a core of logic throughout the twists. This 100-proof nightmare ranks among his most potent.”—Kirkus Reviews

“The startling climax reinforces the novel’s theme that the trappings of the American dream—affluence, fine home, family—don’t necessarily protect one from violence...[The Stranger] carries his trademark asset: a plot that pretty much defies readers to guess the outcome.”—The Columbus Dispatch

From the Publisher

Coben describes Adam's search for the truth…with masterly skill, springing surprises, raising stakes, seamlessly integrating other victims of the "stranger" into Adam's tale. He's also a smooth, funny writer…The book's denouement is enough to make you later to bed than you wanted.

The New York Times Book Review - Charles Finch

02/09/2015
Bestseller Coben (Missing You) continues to turn out thrillers that put highly original spins on a current trend or problem, and while this standalone lacks the nail-biting suspense of his best, it's clever enough to be thoroughly entertaining. Adam Price, wife Corinne, and sons Ryan and Thomas are living the suburban dream in Cedarfield, N.J. Then, at a bar in Cedarfield's American Legion Hall, a man known only as the stranger reveals to Adam a secret of Corinne's that shatters the dream and causes Corinne to disappear. The stranger similarly imparts devastating secrets to Heidi Dann, a middle-aged woman with a family in Beachwood, Ohio, and Michaela Siegel, a medical student in New York City. Price shifts his search efforts from Corrine to the stranger, who is also being pursued by some extremely nasty characters. Lives and reputations are lost along the way. Even when not at his best, Coben is very good, and readers won't be disappointed. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest Literary Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

10/15/2014
Marriage is not bliss when Adam and Hannah confront the terrible secret on which their entire relationship is based, leaving Adam fearful that he's never really known his wife. With seven consecutive No. 1 New York Times best sellers, Coben looks rock-solid on this one. With a five-city tour.

Library Journal

What would you do if a stranger suddenly approached you and began telling intimate secrets a loved one had kept from you? If you’re attorney and family man Adam Price, you’ll investigate in your own way. Narrator George Newbern uses a variety of tones that work in sync with the emotional pull of this story. Newbern alters voices subtly but enough for listeners to keep track of the folks involved. Individual personalities come out of each character as he shapes the story. This well-paced thriller will keep listeners guessing. M.B. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2015 - AudioFile

★ 2015-02-03
Another one of Coben's got-it-all New Jersey dads finds out that his wonderful wife has been hiding a whopper of a secret from him—a secret whose trail leads to even more monstrous revelations."We're living the dream," Tripp Evans assures Adam Price at their sons' sixth-grade lacrosse all-star team draft—lacrosse, for crying out loud. But the dream is already slipping from Adam's grasp as Tripp speaks. Minutes earlier, a young stranger who declined to give his name had sidled up to Adam and informed him that his wife had faked her first pregnancy, which had supposedly ended in a miscarriage. When an agonized Adam confronts Corinne with the story, she doesn't deny it. Instead, she pleads for more time and promises that she'll tell all over a restaurant dinner the following day. Adam, who's clearly never read anything by Coben (Missing You, 2014, etc.), agrees, and Corinne checks out of her high school teaching job and vanishes, pausing just long enough to text Adam: "YOU TAKE CARE OF THE KIDS. DON'T TRY TO CONTACT ME. IT WILL BE OKAY." Days pass, and it's not OK. Adam's two boys (are they really even his? should he run DNA tests?) keep asking where their mom is. There's no word from Corinne, who won't answer Adam's texts. Her cellphone places her somewhere near Pittsburgh. Rumors about her start to percolate through the lacrosse league. And, although it'll take Adam quite a while to find this out, a murder in far-off Ohio has implications for Corinne's disappearance even more disturbing than anything Adam's imagined. Coben can always be relied on to generate thrills from the simplest premises, but his finest tales maintain a core of logic throughout the twists. This 100-proof nightmare ranks among his most potent.

Kirkus Reviews