Tell No One

Harlan Coben

Dr. David Beck is a pediatrician who prefers to work in the Medicaid clinic rather than set up his own practice. His wife, who was murdered when she was 25, worked with the poor and troubled. He has carried on that tradition for the eight years since her death. The day before their anniversary he receives an anonymous email giving him a cryptic message. It directs him to click on a web link at a specific time. It was a coded time he and his wife Elizabeth had used.

David and Elizabeth grew up together. They knew from an early age they would marry eventually. The past eight years have been a blank without her. When the coded time arrives, he clicks on the link to see a web cam set up on some unidentified city corner. Then Elizabeth walks into the screen, looks at him, mouths "I'm sorry", and walks away. David is stunned. She's dead. Her father identified her body while he was in the hospital from the same attacker who killed her. Who is playing this sick game?

Yet David is certain that the image was Elizabeth. Even after a friend shows him the art of digital remastering, he cannot let go of his certainty. He receives another cryptic email referring to an anonymous email account, that ends with "Tell no one."

What he doesn't know is that someone else is watching him; has been watching him for the past eight years. He is about to be plunged into a living nightmare. If there is a chance Elizabeth is alive, he'll endure whatever he must to get her back. If she isn't, he wants to know what is really going on.

Harlan Coben's Tell No One grips the reader from the prologue and doesn't let go. It is a suspense thriller that's hard to put down, yet gets so intense the reader has to for the mental break. The main story is intense. There are quirky, necessary characters who help bring some levity to the story to keep it from overwhelming. The best two are the large lesbian super model and the young drug dealer that probably is a king pin in his area (David is certain of it, but can't prove).

Most of the violence is off page, but enough is there for the reader to want to shudder some. The twists and turns of the plot keep the reader guessing. Some of the coming story is glimpsed, but mostly Coben keeps Tell No One on the edge.

Make sure you have time set aside to read this book. It's not one to try to read in ten minute spurts. Tell No One grabs the reader's imagination immediately, then satisfies the whole way through.

Notice:  Non-graphic violence