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Saturday, August 24, 2013

Six Years

The worst day of Jake Fisher's life was the day he watched Natalie Avery, the love of  his life, marry another man.  In the six years since, he's adjusted to life as a political science professor at a small Massachusetts college.  That is until the afternoon as he's in the middle of office hours, he glimpses an alumni obituary scroll across the college website up on his computer.  Todd Sanderson; why is that name familiar?   Thus Harlan Coben sets the stage for the roller coaster that is Six Years (#324).

Jake's just hoping for a chance to rekindle his old romance when he attends the funeral for Natalie's husband, Todd.  The only problem is, Natalie isn't Todd's widow.  And Jake's life will never be the same again.  Jake is just an ordinary decent guy, which is what makes what follows in this novel so very effective.

Without giving too much away, all I can say is every time I thought I had a handle on where this story might be going, it took an unpredictable turn.  You've got to love the book that keeps you guessing right up until the last pages, yet manages to ultimately make sense of all the puzzles.  It seemed to take me no time at all to read Six Years because I was so caught up in Jake's story.

In fact, the only quibble I have with Six Years is the cover art.  I couldn't figure out any earthly reason why the cover photograph of an outdoor bench (?) was chosen.  It had nothing to do with any arc of the story as far as I could tell.  Had I just seen this book on a display, there was nothing about it to induce me to pick up a copy of the book to even read the cover copy.  Just another example of cover art doing a disservice to the contents.  Just my opinion.  Don't let it stop you from reading a story so gripping it will have you up all night.

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