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NOW A NETFLIX SERIES AND A NETFLIX BOOK CLUB PICK!
The bestselling author and creator of the hit Netflix drama The Stranger proves that the past never truly fades away in this shocking thriller.

Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer but now finds himself in a dead-end job posing as a paparazzo. Broome is a detective who can’t let go of a cold case. Each is hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect.
 
When the terrible consequences of long-ago events threaten to ruin their quiet suburban lives, they will come to the startling realization that they may not want to forget the past at all. As Megan, Ray, and Broome are faced with the excitement of temptation and the desperation and hunger that can lurk behind even the prettiest facades—they will discover a hard truth: the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper-thin as a heartbeat.
NOW A NETFLIX SERIES AND A NETFLIX BOOK CLUB PICK!
The bestselling author and creator of the hit Netflix drama The Stranger proves that the past never truly fades away in this shocking thriller.

Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer but now finds himself in a dead-end job posing as a paparazzo. Broome is a detective who can’t let go of a cold case. Each is hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect.
 
When the terrible consequences of long-ago events threaten to ruin their quiet suburban lives, they will come to the startling realization that they may not want to forget the past at all. As Megan, Ray, and Broome are faced with the excitement of temptation and the desperation and hunger that can lurk behind even the prettiest facades—they will discover a hard truth: the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper-thin as a heartbeat.
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Excerpts-
  • From the book

    STAY CLOSE

    ALSO BY HARLAN COBEN

    Play Dead

    Miracle Cure

    Deal Breaker

    Drop Shot

    Fade Away

    Back Spin

    One False Move

    The Final Detail

    Darkest Fear

    Tell No One

    Gone for Good

    No Second Chance

    Just One Look

    The Innocent

    Promise Me

    The Woods

    Hold Tight

    Long Lost

    Caught

    Live Wire

    Shelter

    STAY CLOSE

    DUTTON

    PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC.

    375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

    Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England;Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

    Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

    Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

    “Atlantic City” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1982 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP).

    Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

    First printing, March 2012

    1   3   5   7   9   10   8   6   4   2

    Copyright © 2012 by Harlan Coben

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

    REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

    has been applied for.

    ISBN: 978-1-101-56117-1

    Printed in the United States of America

    Set in Sabon LT Std.

    Designed by Leonard Telesca

    PUBLISHER’S NOTE

    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

    This one is for
    Aunt Diane and Uncle Norman Reiter
    and
    Aunt Ilene and Uncle Marty Kronberg,
    with love and gratitude.

    Well now everything dies, baby that’s a fact.

    But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back.

    —Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City”

    1

    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. That horrible moment—the moment Ray’s life changed completely, transforming him from a man with a future and aspirations into this Grade-A loser you see in...

Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    Starred review from January 30, 2012
    Edgar-winner Coben (Caught) continues to mine rich veins of terror in his New Jersey novels of domestic suspense, exploring both the reality and the ideal of family ties and the ease with which evil can destroy both. In this masterful stand-alone, three people are haunted by the disappearance of Stewart Green 17 years earlier in Atlantic City: photographer Ray Levine; housewife Megan Pierce; and Detective Broome, who investigated the disappearance and befriended Green’s wife and kids. The disappearance of Carlton Flynn on February 18, the same date Green went missing, helps reignite the smoldering case, pointing the way to other victims and a strange pattern. Flynn’s case also results in a pair of preppie, very scary sadists calling themselves Ken and Barbie entering the scene. Coben writes with wit and irony, and his flair for exposing the frail balance point between order and chaos in our lives has never been stronger than in this suspenseful outing. 5-city author tour. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest Literary Agency.

  • Kirkus

    February 15, 2012
    The past comes knocking for a former stripper who thought she'd said goodbye to all that in an altogether less-successful distaff reworking of The Innocent (2005). In some ways, the life Megan Pierce left behind when she stopped giving lap dances and calling herself Cassie was perfect: exciting, glamorous and anything but routine. If only her abusive client Stewart Green hadn't vanished under circumstances that strongly suggested a violent end, Megan would never have taken a powder, ultimately trading Atlantic City's La Creme nightclub for the American dream with a lawyer husband, two perfect children and every appliance of the upscale suburban lifestyle. One day, however, Megan--motivated solely, it seems, by the need to kick-start the plot--decides to drop in at La Creme. Her sudden reappearance, together with her old colleague Lorraine Griggs' sighting of somebody who looks a lot like Stewart and the remarkably similar disappearance exactly 17 years later of construction heir Carlton Flynn, sets in motion a new chain of violence and threatens to reveal all of Megan's carefully hidden secrets. Eventually she reconnects with her old flame Ray Levine, a photographer who has hit the skids big time, and tells what she knows to Det. Broome of Atlantic City Homicide. But both men's most protective instincts are challenged by a pair of wholesome killers calling themselves Barbie and Ken--and by the fact that Broome's own boss is working against him.A proficient but routine thriller in which you can tell for miles in advance who's disposable and who's slated for survival, marked by the virtual absence of the baroque plot twists fans of Coben (Live Wire, 2011, etc.) expect as their due.

    COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  • Booklist

    Starred review from February 1, 2012
    Coben's title describes perfectly how the suspense in this tour-de-force stand-alone works. It stays close in an unbelievably sustained way, giving the reader a steady steam of jolts and sinking feelings, as Coben's three main characters face danger from without and from their own tricky psyches. These three characters are mired in the past. They all got stuck there when a family man with a secret life went missing 17 years ago. Ray is a former AP photojournalist who has become a drunk and a professional bottom-feeder as a photographer for a service that hires fake paparazzi. Coben's descriptions of Ray's work (especially for the poor slob who hires him on a succession of first dates) is side-splittingly funny. The second character seems to be doing greatMegan is a wealthy, tennis-playing, SUV-driving suburban mombut she yearns for her former life as an exotic dancer. And Broome is a detective who became too involved with the family of the missing man and can't shake the case. When another local man disappears, Broome intensifies the investigation, discovering that 14 men have vanished on Mardi Gras over the last 17 years. Coben excels in descriptions of his characters' tortured, ruminative inner lives. He also can pull out of their psychological nosedives to deliver some of the most shocking action scenes in current crime fiction. Once again, Coben uses the dives of Atlantic City as a backdrop, and what he does with the six-story pink construction known as Lucy the Elephant is worthy of Hitchcock. Satisfying on every level. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Coben's stand-alone thrillers are as close as one can come in publishing to sure-thing best-sellers, even without the full-court marketing press this one will have behind it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

  • Publisher's Weekly

    August 27, 2012
    Coben's latest stand-alone thriller, a sophisticated look at the intersections of three people leading lives of quiet desperation, is vividly brought to life by Scott Brick's skillful, subtle narration. With multiple protagonists, it's essential that the narrator give each of them a distinct voice, and Brick rises to the occasion. He is especially good at matching his pacing to the mood of the text. With a single line of narration, e.g., "With a heavy sigh, Detective Broome approached the doomed house and rang the bell," Brick makes the listener feel what is implied: the slow tread of the policeman, obsessed by an unsolved disappearance and weary from the guilt he carries over his continued failure to bring closure to the family of the missing man. Coben takes his time setting the stage for the drama that will unfold, and Brick's unhurried approach is a perfect match for the material. A Dutton hardcover.

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