Missing You - Harlan Coben

Harlan Coben is back with his latest thriller, MISSING YOU. After a few books which were solidly good yet not brilliant, he's created a set of oddball characters we love to love. Together with a twisty, satisfying plot, that will jerk your heartstrings, this is a sure winner.

(Incidentally, here is a reviewer who disagrees with me and while loving MISSING YOU thinks the 2013 Coben, SIX YEARS, was better.)

And yes, Mr Coben, I remember the song well. :-)

From the book jacket:

It's a profile, like all the others on the online dating site. But as NYPD Detective Kat Donovan focuses on the accompanying picture, she feels her whole world explode, as emotions she’s ignored for decades come crashing down on her. Staring back at her is her ex-fiancé Jeff, the man who shattered her heart—and who she hasn’t seen in 18 years.

Kat feels a spark, wondering if this might be the moment when past tragedies recede and a new world opens up to her.  But when she reaches out to the man in the profile, her reawakened hope quickly darkens into suspicion and then terror as an unspeakable conspiracy comes to light, in which monsters prey upon the most vulnerable.

As the body count mounts and Kat's hope for a second chance with Jeff grows more and more elusive, she is consumed by an investigation that challenges her feelings about everyone she ever loved—her former fiancé, her mother, and even her father, whose cruel murder so long ago has never been fully explained.

Rediscovering Ruth Rendell

I used to read lots of Ruth Rendell books. My favourites include The Crocodile Bird, The Bridesmaid and Sight For Sore Eyes. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover The Vault which picks up the action years after the events of Sight For Sore Eyes, with Wexford trying to solve the more-than-a-decade-old mystery. A thoroughly good read.

Encouraged by that, I read The St Zita Society by the same author. I love the way she portrays her characters. I shall be reading and re-readign more Ruth Rendells soon.

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

You know, I'm very pleasantly surprised by Raising Steam. It's almost as though old Terry's back. It's great to return to Ankh-Morpork where Nobby is Nobby, Vimes is Vimes and Vetinari is Vetinari - or is he? Having a steam train in Discworld is a logical step in the series, and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey.

Class With Savvy Authors

Running Down the Stairs, She Put on Her Shoes by Yvonne Walus

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May 12 - May 25, 2014
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"Running down the stairs, she put on her shoes." Do you know why your editor will tell you to rework this sentence?   This class will tell you why. It'll also teach you how to dig deeper into the story to come up with interesting sentence structures, other than the dreaded "she did this and then she did that." Level: Mixed Where:  The Savvy Forums Cost:  Premium Members $20 / Basic Members $30 Syllabus: Lesson 1: Those pesky -ings Lesson 2: He said, she said... Remove Those Tags! Lesson 3: She went outside. She started the car engine. She drove... and the reader fell asleep. Lesson 4: Q&A   Yvonne Walus is an award-winning novelist with over 20 books published in USA and UK.