Kat Donovan, the main character in Coben's Missing You, is a NYPD Detective. There seem to be at least as many mysteries in her personal life as her professional life.
Her grandfather and father were both cops. Her grandfather was not able to handle it when his wife became terminally ill, deserted her in her time of need, returned too late, then killed himself with his service revolver. This is mentioned at the beginning of the book, to show the lineage of 'damaged cops' that Kat comes from.
Kat's dad was murdered by a hit man for the mob. Early on in the story, the hit man recants his confession from his death bed directly to Kat. This leads to one big mystery, if he didn't kill Kat's dad, who did?
Right around the same time that Kat's dad was killed, Kat became distraught and withdrawn and this caused her fiance to leave. This was 18 years ago, and she has not heard from him since. She has never gotten over him, because he was the love of her life.
Kat's best friend, a gorgeous Private Investigator named Stacy, signs her up for a dating site. Kat decides to give it a look. Wait, there's Jeff! Hmmm.. How to approach? She decides to send him a youtube clip of a song that was extremely meaningful to both of them. They were engaged, and he should remember this. They used it to sign notes. She is confident that this is the perfect overture.
Whoops! Jeff has no clue what the song is about. This starts off mystery number two. What is going on there? Is it Jeff, but he doesn't remember her? Not Jeff?
Soon after, a college aged boy, Brandon, comes to see her at work. His mom was on the same dating site, went away for a trip with a guy she met, and hasn't sent him the texts she promised. Ok, she did sent some texts... but she signs 'love', not miss you, and she always says 'mom', even though he knows who she is!
In the meantime, we are let into another mystery that Kat is not yet aware of. A socially awkward man named Gerard expects to have a romantic trip with Vanessa. Instead, he ends up buried under the ground in Amish country. Occasionally he is brought up to take a walk up a path. Could this be related to any of the other mysteries?
I wouldn't consider any of these spoilers, as this is all revealed early on in the book. As the story unfolds, more mysteries are added.
Reasons I did not give 5 stars: This book requires quite a bit of suspension of reality; the plot comes together a little too neatly. The characters have a caricature-like quality - Stacy and Aqua made me wince at times.
Reasons I enjoyed it: It kept a good pace. Despite the plot having one (or two) too many coincidences to resemble reality, this book was strangely compelling. I found myself wanting to read on to see what outrageous thing might happen next. It was far from boring!
Holly Singleton
Always Reading!