Book review: Murder mystery takes cop down dangerous road of online dating, deception
<b>"MISSING YOU," by Harlan Coben, Dutton, $27.95, 399 pages (f)</b>
Kat Donovan's life has unraveled to the point where she is barely held together by a handful of loose strings. Nearly two decades before, her father was murdered and the love of her life left her alone and shattered.
She was once carefree, with the world in the palm of her hand and a diamond ring on her finger, until her father's mysterious murder began to haunt her every move. Eighteen years later, Kat has fallen into the footsteps of her father as an NYPD cop but hasn't given up on getting to the bottom of his unexplained murder.
Harlan Coben, whose books have been on the New York Times Best Sellers lists, dives headfirst into the tricky, deceptive and often dangerous nature of online dating in his new murder-mystery, "Missing You." He spreads Kat thin across three storylines: solving her father's murder, trying to get over her ex-fiancé and solving the mystery of a mother gone missing.
It starts with a teenage boy on a mission to find Kat. He's in a panic; his mother is missing after having left for a weekend getaway with a man she had only met online. The missing woman starts as a side plot to Kat's ongoing obsession with her father's murder but quickly evolves into an all-encompassing investigation tracing the kidnapper through the digital age. Each branching storyline pulls Kat in a different direction, but she suddenly finds herself smack-dab in a mystery she can't solve.
Each page presents a new twist that is strategically placed and perfectly timed to keep readers on the edge of their seats. Coben takes seemingly harmless online dating to an alarming level as he brings Kat to a world of gruesome murder, kidnapping, deception and betrayal.
In the investigation of the woman's disappearance, Kat's ex-fiancé, Jeff, is pegged as an accomplice. The few clues Kat is left to work with only lead her down rabbit holes. Determined to get closure on each case, and on her relationship with Jeff, she finds herself biting off more than she can chew and having to decide whether she can handle - or even wants to know - the truth.
"Missing You" has mature interactions and language. Coben takes readers through a murderer's mind right to the brink of the violent act and then highlights the victim's fear. Some of Kat's encounters are hypersexualized and stacked with adult language, including swearing and innuendos.%3Cimg%20src%3D%22http%3A//beacon.deseretconnect.com/beacon.gif%3Fcid%3D156260%26pid%3D46%22%20/%3E</group><group id="4D2C69A2-CE52-4A56-A275-4760473D14CB" type="seoLabels"><se