LONG LOST

Agent Myron Bolitar returns in a case as twisty and ambitious as Coben’s highly successful stand-alones (Hold Tight, 2008, etc.).

It’s been almost ten years since Myron last saw one-time news anchor Terese Collins in The Final Detail (1999). But that doesn’t prevent her from emerging from seclusion in Angola to invite him for a weekend in Paris. Romance isn’t all she has in mind, she confesses when Myron joins her. Her ex-husband Rick, a CNN investigative reporter, summoned her to the City of Lights because he had something desperately important to tell her. Before he can share his news, he’s killed, and the blood found on the scene includes some that matches the DNA of his daughter Miriam—which would be a shocking development even if Miriam hadn’t been killed in a car accident ten years ago. At least now Myron has a hint as to what Rick wanted to tell his ex. And that’s nice, because the mystery of the dead girl’s blood rapidly balloons to involve Interpol, the FBI and a notorious international terrorist. As usual, Coben piles on the complications with a generous hand—here’s the fertility clinic that helped Terese get pregnant, there’s the adoption agency Rick was investigating, and let’s not forget the jurisdictional squabbles between different law-enforcement agencies.

Fans are strongly advised to leave plenty of time to plow through the case at one sitting, as any delay would be fatal to the suspension of disbelief it demands. On the other hand, those few hours will leave the easy chair smoking.