'The Stranger' - a chilling novel by Harlan Coben

WATKINS GLEN, New York - Harlan Coben's latest novel, The Stranger, is frostbite of a chiller, combining family dynamics, Internet crime, the small mindedness of a small-town and the politics of youth sports.

Oh, and there is enough deception and deliberate author-induced misdirection to make Arthur Conan Doyle smile.

The basic premise - having a stranger whisper something to you that makes you begin to doubt, well, everything - makes this book impossible to put down.

And as the story unfolds, the main protagonist finds himself swept up in a search for his wife - and the truth about both his relationship to her and his own culpability in his (and other people's) troubles.

Harlan Coben

The books moves along rapidly like all of Coben's novels. This one has some double twist somersaults in the plot that will force you to smile, even as your gasp at their meaning.

The Stranger is highly recommended, though it's no beach novel.

And it's on the new book shelf at the Watkins Glen library.