Missing You

By: Harlan Coben

Narrated by: January LaVoy

Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's Summary

Number-one New York Times best-selling author Harlan Coben set huge sales records with last year’s Six Years - and he’s poised to do it again in his next breathtaking stand-alone thriller. Harlan Coben, author of six consecutive instant number-one New York Times best sellers and a total of 24 award-winning, best-selling, and internationally acclaimed novels, returns with another ripped-from-real-life thriller full of impossibly high emotional stakes and the real-to-life characters for which he has become famous.

©2014 Harlan Coben (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Words and music to the song “Demon Lover” composed by Michael Peter Smith, Bird Avenue PublishingASCAP, © 1986, used with permission. All rights reserved.

A different and wonderful crime thriller!

I'm catching up on writing some reviews of some of the best and worst Audible books I've listened to in recent years. Missing You is in "one of the best" category.

I am a long time Harlan Coben fan. This book is different from most. It is a crime/mystery thriller with a female protagonist. The NYC cop is determined to solve her dad's murder. Missing you is a touching and wonderful story.

Coben writes some great teen/YA novels, but this book is intended for adults. Nevertheless, it would be fine for teens.

January LaVoy reminds us again with her outstanding narration that she is one of the best.

Very highly recommended.

50 of 51 people found this review helpful

I Ain't Missing You

Wow, I thought this book was one of the best I have read so far this year. I think it was so perfect for my taste because it built an amazing back story, (actually two), that kept building and really helped me to connect with the characters. Then, just when the two mysteries were on the verge of making me crazy, the rollercoaster started down on its lightening speed descent. Hold on to your hat and whatever else you brought along with you because it has an extremely exciting, explosive ending with a very short cooling down period.

Kat is a NYPD Detective and has been trying to figure out why and who killed her father, (also a NYPD cop), eighteen years ago. When the person who confessed to his killing dies, the information he provided starts to become chock full of holes, which in turn sends Kat into overdrive with more questions than ever.

At the time of her father's death Kat's personal life basically went down the tubes. She has devoted herself to her work and searching for the truth behind what really happened all those years ago, this of course does not leave much time for relationships or dating. When her best friend signs her up on a computer dating service she is astounded to find an old love interest on the site as well. When curiosity gets the Kat, she sends a message out to him only to be shut down cold. Kat is confused but decides to let sleeping dogs lie, however, her best friend is not and starts her own little investigation.

Shortly after the the big brush off a young college student comes in out of the blue asking for her help to find his mother who he thinks is missing. She is perplexed as to why he would come to her for help when the crime, if any, is not in her district and she has never laid eyes on this young man before. Well, this is where the plot thickens, trusted people become deceptive and people she has never counted on for commeradery start coming out of the wood work to help her.

January LaVoy is a wonderful narrator, her voices and timing were spot on and certainly helped build the story. I highly recommend this suspense-thriller.

145 of 153 people found this review helpful

Like driving a mountain switch base doing 80

I always don't read anything about a Coben book before I start into it. One of the best things about this author is he ability to build the suspense early by opening just the right amount of questions. I liken Coben to a magician, a magician used diversion to astonish the audience. So too, in all Coben books, you think the story is going in one direction and then it goes in another. You think, wow, he has given away a too much in foreshadow only to be wrong only a few chapters ahead.

This is a story about a woman, a cop, and her murdered father who-dun-it. That's where the pedestrian plot end. I recommend to anyone from a later teen onward. You will be enthralled. I just can't give away any of it because you have to experience it for yourself.

67 of 73 people found this review helpful

"Missing You"

One of the best books I've read in a long time.
I have been a Coben fan for years. He hasn't disappointed yet!!

24 of 27 people found this review helpful

Mr. Coben strikes again! Amazing.

What made the experience of listening to Missing You the most enjoyable?

Not one thing, but so many things about the book. I began listening to Mr. Coben over twenty years ago, when his books were all about Myron Bolitar. Those books were great, but eventually Mr. Coben knew that he had to diversify. And he has done so brilliantly. This is a stand-alone book which features an NYPD cop named Cat, her friend Stacy, and a whole host of other characters who are each interesting and well drawn. I really loved the entire book. The ending is very suspenseful and exciting, and if you are reading it before you go to sleep, you may have a tough time settling down. The suspense at the end is real, and it grips you so hard that you can't let go. I have no idea how long Mr. Coben can keep writing these terrific books, but he shows no signs of slowing down.Far from repeating himself, Mr. Coben seems to be picking up new tricks, and it is fun to watch him use these new toys.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

Yes. Mr. Coben has kept current on a number of contemporary cultural experiences. One that plays a big part in this book is the world of internet dating. Cat has been given a gift membership to one of these sites, called You are just my type. She is stunned to find a man who she had been in love with a very long time ago: they had broken up eighteen years ago. However, Jeff Raines has taken a new name, and this plot development sets off a number of chases, all of which are interesting and very well written. Jeff leads Cat to a vicious villain who does unspeakable things to innocent people who have responded to the site. I will spare you the horrific details. By the middle of the book, a character named Dana and her son Brandon have risen to the center of the action, and by this time the action has reached the proverbial fever pitch. This is a book in which Part II is just as good as Part I. Mr. Coben interweaves his many characters into the group of plots that are each as gripping as the next. This is great writing.

Which character – as performed by January LaVoy – was your favorite?

I have never heard Ms. Lavoy narrate before, but I am glad to say that I will now look for her other performances. While she has a little trouble with male voices, after a while that just doesn't matter, because she brings you along for the marvelous ride that shifts into high gear until the very end of the book. Many contemporary themes are involved, and both author and narrator handle each of them with great skill. I can complain about absolutely nothing. You should have a great deal of fun with this book, and if it causes you to go back to listen to some of the Myron Bolitar books, so much the better. The older books are very funny, with the more recent works concentrating more on plot and less on jokes. I just do not know how Mr. Coben keeps turning out these great books so quickly and regularly. He is becoming one of our most prolific authors. You'd think that he would run out of steam after two decades, as, for instance, James Lee Burke has done, sadly. But no. Mr. Coben does not run out of inventive, greatly interesting characters and plots, and he shows no signs of flagging. My hat is off to him. May he write this well for another two decades.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I couldn't possibly do that. It's too long, for one, and also I enjoy waiting for what is to come in the books in between readings. I like to be able to savor a great book for a long time, rather than consuming it in one humongous bite.

Any additional comments?

Not really. I do wonder whether Mr. Coben can bring out Myron and Win and that entire cast for one more go-round. Mr. Coben seems to reach into his humor bag more deeply when he writes about Myron, and his humor is great. Truly, you won't go wrong by buying almost any book written by Harlan Coben: he is by now a national treasure.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Be ready to sit in your garage to keep listening!

Harlan Coben has written another non-stop thriller that will leave you on the edge of your seat, and make you never want to stop reading! This book grabbed me immediately and never let go till the very end. I really like the character of Kat and would read more books with her in them.

What would you do if you found your ex (the one who got away) on a dating site well you find his picture but the name isn’t the same and when you message him he at first doesn’t seem to remember you. As if that isn’t bad enough some kid (Brandon) shows up at your door saying that same man went away with his mother and he thinks she is in trouble. Throw in a mystery about who really killed Kat’s father and away we go on this rollercoaster ride of a story. Be ready for twists and turns and red herrings, which will keep you guessing all the way to the end.

I love Harlan Coben’s books he always writes a good solid story with a mystery that keeps you on your toes, there was one part of the story I had figured out but my theory was not what Coben ended up writing so I still wasn’t 100% right and I love that in a mystery. I liked the fact that there weren’t any cardboard cutout characters in this book each character had their own identity and back story, which made me care about them even the ones that didn’t last long.

January LaVoy’s narration was very well done I liked that you always knew who was talking and that everyone had a voice, I must mention though there are times some of her male characters sound like cartoons but that was only a couple people so it was easy to overlook. This is my second narration by January and I really enjoyed both so I will seek out books where she is the narrator. Very well done narration.

If you can’t already tell I loved this book, so the only thing I can say to you is, what are you waiting for get to listening!

5 Stars

37 of 44 people found this review helpful

Outstanding Mystery

Unusually, the protagonist is a female cop. A visit by a strange teenage boy sets the dual mysteries spinning around each other.
One of the best police procedurals I've read all year, but not for the faint of heart.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

This story has it all!

This story was a great detective story, a great mystery and romance. Highly recommend it.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Good read in my opinion...

While this book did not keep me on the edge of my seat biting my nails, I found that it was a good mystery with a cautionary thread running through it. I think that Harlan Coben did an excellent job in weaving two mysteries together. I recommend it, in my opinion it had good entertainment value.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

This is not the Harlan Coben you're looking for

A bad guy who kidnaps, robs and tortures. A girl whose father is murdered, compelling her to spend the rest of her life seeking his killer, breaking the rules to get there.... An online dating site where men are not who they say they are.

Sound familiar? Sound original? Sound so completely used up it will make you puke if one more story features these tired ideas? Then this is not the Harlan Coben you're looking for.

It gets worse. The evil bad guy rants on and on about his terrible plans--even using the same sentences word-for-word, over and over again and again and again. The cute, tough female cop thinks about nothing but her poor father's death, even tho it was 10 years previous, and she thinks about it a lot. Of course all this repetitive pondering allows a shallow plot to fill up the required 100,000 words for publication--get's you to 300 pages without much effort, but isn't good in any other way.

This is still acceptable commercial fiction, of course. I couldn't do it myself. But not up to par for this author. Either Harlan is tired, he's teaching his kid how to write, or he pulled out a drawer book and is on vacation.

72 of 92 people found this review helpful