As I listened to this unbelievable mess I kept trying to remember why I thought I liked novels by Harlen Coben. By unbelievable I mean the characters' motivations and actions, and the premise that multiple murders could have been committed in the same spot over so many years without any bodies having been discovered. None of this was helped by Scott Brick's overacting (over-narrating?), reading everything, even chapter numbers, with deep emotional gravitas. I'm not sure how (or why) I made it through to the end.

Whenever a new Harlan Coben's book is publishing, I buy it immidiatly.
Harlan Coben has a formula of smart-funny-human thrillers that I always enjoy hearing/ reading.
Opposing to some of the reviews here- I also enjoyed the narrator's performance which made the book interesting and very floating.
If you like Harlan Coben- you will enjoy this book!

I can't tell if this was a good story or not. The narration drove me nuts. Scott Brick narrates with a sing song, overly dramatic style as though each sentence in the book is somehow deeply significant. There is no subtly, no shading of weight and meaning; nothing understated. Without these, there can be no building of suspense. It is like every sentence is underlined. Melodrama instead of drama. In my opinion, the great actors and narrators can convey so much more by doing so much less. I have heard one other book narrated by Scott Brick and I felt the same way. I will never buy another.

Not sure

I found this story a bit difficult to get into, I had to restart a few times, but once I got going with the story, I found it enjoyable.
I have enjoyed all of the authors works. I would not say this is his best, but I certainly do not regret spending a credit on this.
My wife listens to books that I recommend to her, I am probably not going to suggest that she listen to this one, but I listen to twice as many books as her because of my commute.
All in all a good listen.
I like the narrator.

I miss Terah and Myron! While I have enjoyed most of Cobin's books, Stay Close was slow and painfully boring to me. It might have been Scott Brick's reading and interpretation. His cadence was irritating. Also when he read to illustrate intensity it was nauseating. In addition, the plot line was weak and trite. A familiar story about the underworld--senseless murder and tortures, crazed murderers, old strippers/hookers, and dirty cops. It was difficult to keep up with some of the characters because of their similar suburban names and aliases--Barbie and Ken--give me a break. Could not find any reason to care about any of the characters. The dialogue between characters was redundant and made it difficult to maintain sustained interest. Again, I think that the pace of the narrator's reading was so slow that it was easy to lose interest. Would find myself thinking about other stuff and not listening. It has taken me weeks to get through this one. It was definitely a struggle to finish. I only did so because getting a refund was not an option. This was a disappointment after the Bolitar stories.

I've been a long-time fan of Harlan Coben who has written great characters and intriguing plot lines. The same can be said for this book except that at least fifty percent of the rumination by the main characters could have been deleted causing a seventy-five percent improvement in the narrative.

Scott Brick reads every part with maximum angst. The middle-aged navel gazing and Brick's one note performance, became so irritating that I stopped listening at the beginning of the second part and skipped to the last chapter to find out if the plot resolved as I predicted. It did.

This is not a novel by the Harlan Coben of yesteryear. This is a sappy, soporific romance novel! Scott Brick may be partially to blame, but whoever wrote this does not know how to write a mystery.
Maudlin, exaggerated emotion, thick as sacharine and just about as genuine. Is Coben burned out and ghosting these atrocities?
I got in about an hour or two then went looking for some professional writing!!!

Congodog

Is Scott Brick taking drama lessons? Suddenly, even the menus at fast food restaurants are filled with portends of what--food poisoning? A good reader goes rogue and spoils a slowly unfolding horror story where the every dayness and prosaic ordinariness of upper class suburban NJ unfolds to the evils of Atlantic City.Harlan meanwhile is still doing his subtle rift on Philip Roth was action set in the Pine Barrens, where a memorable Roth character once had a shack and his philosophical probing of love, loss, and the darker side of the human mind. Despite an overly long and melodramatic ending, the plot is rich with complicated characters and enough twists to make it compelling listening. Flair the attorney returns in a minor role and the dark side of Wynn is there in two characters, Ken and Barbie.

Great characters made it worthwhile but a few plot teasers like Megan's mother-in-law's supposed stalker and Dave's hidden past are disappointing.

Sounds like he has taken drama lessons and is determined to give everything great importance. It becomes distracting. More than reading, he is declaiming.

not one of Coban's best but a good story that could have been better told by both the author and the narrator

"Broome looked at the remains of what had been a furnace two hundred years ago." Only Scott Brick's overwrought elegiac delivery could make that sound like the saddest thing in the world. Of course, it's not. It's just a physical detail of a crime scene. Brick constantly skews the sense of the sentences he reads, spinning them with a histrionic emotional english that distorts whatever it was the author intended them to mean -- and you're left to figure out what that might have been. But while you're figuring, he's off to bemoaning the cracks in the sidewalk or some x-random character's party dress as if it were the biggest tragedy ever to befall humankind. I thought maybe he'd gotten the message from readers to tone it down, but apparently not.

As to the book, if strip-mall philosophy stops you in your tracks and re-calibrates your sense of self, this is deep stuff indeed. Otherwise, it's all rather pedestrian -- except for the torture and psychosexual depravity, which I guess is to take the embarrassingly bourgeois edge off. Look, I love mysteries and thrillers and my standards aren't all that high, really, but whoever writes the treacly mainstream reviews for stuff like this are either tone-deaf or on the take. Other than that, I really enjoyed the book.

I have never read or listened to Coben. I thought the story was dull and I hated the narration. He read as if he was reading a five year old a bedtime story.