Wendy is a reporter on a mission. She’s chasing down sexual predators and exposing them on national television. Her big break comes when she nails a child advocate. She’s there, camera’s rolling, when the cops cuff him and the guy realises his life is over. Three months later, the perp is missing and the father of a victim claims to have killed him. Wendy, who has moved on to the story of a missing girl, gets a phone call that changes everything.
Having finally got my reading mojo back, I’ve come to realise I really enjoy crime/thriller novels so I thought I’d give my first ever Harlan Coben novel a go. Without ever having picked up one of his novels, I already knew that Coben is considered a master of the crime genre so I thought it was about time I tried one of his books. Enter Caught, a thriller that had me hooked from the start.
When Dan Mercer is “caught” live on air meeting an underage girl, his life is over. Wendy Tynes, the reporter who exposes him, believes she’s succeeded in removing another sexual predator from the streets. But after the trial, Wendy isn’t so sure she got it right. She begins to dig around for information from Dan’s ex-wife and his old college room mates. She unearths links, lies and stories that have been buried for years but she needs to piece it altogether in order to have any chance of finding missing girl, Hayley McWaid.
For my first foray into Harlan Coben novels, I was pretty impressed. The story was gripping and packed with twists and turns. I really liked that there was so much more to it then the original revelation about Dan Mercer and I was constantly left trying to work out would would happen. It was an easy, enjoyable read that I desperately wanted to get to the end of so I could find out what happened.
My only criticism of this novel is the writing is a tad far-fetched and a little simplistic. It is only a minor criticism though which doesn’t at all detract from how much I enjoyed reading this book. This may have been my first Harlan Coben novel but it won’t be my last.
Rating: ★★★★☆
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