Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees (2002) Penguin, 302 pages, $14.00 trade paperback ISBN 0-14-200174-0 Highly Recommended Everyone is buzzing over The Secret Life of Bees. Every time I ask people if they’ve read any good books lately, I get the same answer: The Secret Life of Bees. “This book is […]
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Coben, Harlan. No Second Chance (2003) Dutton, 338 pages, $24.95 hardcover ISBN 0-525-94729-9 “Can you ever do the wrong thing for the right reason?” That’s the question Harlan Coben addresses in his latest thriller, No Second Chance. As we’ve come to expect from Coben, the novel grabs us with its opening line: “When the
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Lehane, Dennis. Mystic River (2001) HarperCollins, 448 pages, $7.99 mass market paperback ISBN 0 380 73185 1 Highly Recommended Dennis Lehane takes a break from Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro of Dorchester to tell the story of three boys from the fictional East Buckingham, a working-class district just west of downtown.
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Walters, Minette. The Dark Room (1996) Penguin Putnam, 339 pages, $7.99 mass market paperback ISBN 0-515-12045-6 Jinx Kingsley, a London photographer and daughter of a millionaire father with reputed underworld connections, wakes up in a private hospital. She has no recollection of how or why she got there. But she does have flashes
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McDermid, Val. A Place of Execution (1999)St. Martin’s, 465 pages, $6.99 mass market paperback ISBN 0-312-97953-3 Recommended British writer Catherine Heathcote has nearly finished her book about a famous case, the disappearance of 13-year-old Alison Carter 25 years earlier. Although Heathcote has interviewed all the people still living who were involved in
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Lehane, Dennis. A Drink Before the War (1994) HarperCollins, 277 pages, $6.99 mass market paperback ISBN 0 380 72623 8 Sometimes it pays to start reading a series at the beginning. And sometimes it doesn’t. After discovering Dennis Lehane in Gone, Baby, Gone, I decided to get to know Patrick Kenzie
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Coben, Harlan. Gone for Good (2002) Delacorte, 341 pages, $23.95 hardcover ISBN 0-385-33558-X While looking over his mother’s belongings just after her death from cancer, Will Klein discovers a photograph that indicates his brother, Ken, may still be alive. Eleven years earlier Will’s former girlfriend and neighbor, Julie Miller, was murdered in their suburban
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Coben, Harlan. Tell No One (2001) Delacorte, 339 pages, $22.95 hardcover ISBN 0-385-33555 Recommended Spoiler Alert! This review gives away plot details that may spoil the reading experience for you. Proceed at your own peril! You’ll get a second warning below. “Don’t start this book at bedtime,” several people told me. “I stayed up all
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Harlan Coben was born in Newark, NJ, in 1962 and grew up in Livingston, NJ. He continues to live in NJ with his wife, a pediatrician, and their four children. He graduated from Amherst College with a major in political science. Coben is the first author to win all three of mystery’s most prestigious awards:
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Connelly, Michael. Blood Work (1998). Little Brown, 391 pages, $23.95 hardcover ISBN 0 316 15399 0 Taking a break from LAPD detective Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly introduces a new character, former FBI agent Terry McCaleb. We first meet McCaleb two months after his heart transplant surgery, living in a Los Angeles marina
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