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    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    Stay Close

    Written by Harlan Coben

    Narrated by Scott Brick

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Now she’s got two kids, a perfect husband, a picket fence, and a growing sense of dissatisfaction. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer, but at the age of forty he finds himself in a dead-end job posing as a paparazzo, pandering to celebrity-obsessed rich kids. Broome is a detective who can’t let go of a cold case—a local husband and father who disappeared seventeen years ago—and spends the anniversary every year visiting a house frozen in time, the missing man’s family still waiting, his slippers left by the recliner as if he might show up at any moment to step into them.

    Three people living lives they never wanted, hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect, will find that the past never truly fades away. Even as the terrible consequences of long-ago events crash together in the present and threaten to ruin lives, they will come to the startling realization that they may not want to forget the past at all. And as each confronts the dark side of the American dream—the boredom of a nice suburban life, the excitement of temptation, the desperation and hunger that can lurk behind even the prettiest façades—they will discover the hard truth that the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper-thin as a heartbeat.

    Master of domestic suspense Harlan Coben delivers his trademark combination of page-turning thrills and unrivaled insight into the dark shadows that creep into even the happiest communities.

    Praise for the narration of Stay Close by Harlan Coben, performed by Scott Brick:

    “Scott Brick crafts characters not so much by shaping each individual voice with different accents but by expressions and tones that convey strong emotions. And the emotions are far ranging. Empathy, psychotic behavior, and frantic helplessness all figure into the narration as much as the plot. It’s a diverse group tied to the crimes: a crooked cop haunted by his conscience, two young psychopathic killers without remorse, old lovers who are trying to escape their past and confront their present. Brick’s narration is crucial as the solution is unearthed.” © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMar 20, 2012
    ISBN9781441895431
    Stay Close
    Author

    Harlan Coben

    With more than seventy million books in print worldwide, Harlan Coben is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of numerous suspense novels, including Don't Let Go, Home, and Fool Me Once, as well as the multi-award-winning Myron Bolitar series. His books are published in forty-three languages around the globe and have been number one bestsellers in more than a dozen countries. He lives in New Jersey.

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    Reviews for Stay Close

    3.5/5

    508 ratings51 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Like Scott brick .. liked complexity of the story and didn’t see ending coming! Well written..
    • 5/5
      This is a great mystery novel. My first by this author and I will definitely be reading more.
    • 5/5
      Suspense and twisted plot I love this author ever disappointed
    • 5/5
      Love his writing as usual, but Scott Brick really makes it come to life. Wished he had used him as narrator on all his books and hope he will use him in the future.
    • 4/5
      The narrator is great, he makes the book come alive. I enjoyed the story except the reader doesn’t find out about the two young people and their connection to the old lawyer— or maybe I missed something .
    • 4/5
      More of Coben's fairly standard suspense fare although without the presence of Myron Bolitar. (I kind of missed him!) This one deals with a former stripper gone straight and a series of killings of men that happened at the same time each year. I listened to the audio book and found it a very good way to make the miles pass more quickly. Try it; you'll like it.
    • 4/5
      I like Coben's non-basketball books. And this one was good but not the best. A winding tale about seemingly random deaths of people who don't matter turns into a twisted tail of a serial killer with a special mission. It rambled a little and some of the twists and turns were just a little too jerky but I rode it to the end and I'm glad I did.
    • 3/5
      Lots of plots and subplots as an old pole dancer gets drawn into a crime of the past, pulling her and her old identity back into her former life.
    • 4/5
      I found it to be a good and typical Harlan Coben book, fast paced, interesting characters.
    • 2/5
      Not Mr C's best. Still, it's barely enjoyable. For some reason, this stand alone novel did not impress. I plodded through the plot and barely kept up with the implausible characters. I skipped about two hours of it in the middle of the listen and I don't believe that I missed much. I'm a Harlen Coben fan but I was disappointed with this book.
    • 5/5
      After reading others reviews about this book, I was expecting to be disappointed. Overall, I wasn't. As always, the content, twist and turns were excellent.

      Megan has been keeping a secret from her husband, and family for almost twenty years... In her previous life, she was a stripper in Atlantic City. But, seventeen years ago, one of her clients was murdered...and she fled, fearing that she would be implicated for the murder, or her boyfriend would be.

      But now, seventeen years later, another man has gone missing...and Megan feels the need to go back and do the right thing. However, once she's back in Atlantic City, she's not sure returning was the right the right thing after all...lives are in danger, including her own...

    • 5/5
      The more I read Harlan Coben's books - particularly the later, stand-alone ones, the more of a fan I become. Here we have the traditional respectable-married-woman-with-sordid-past (and most of his novels have one) but in this case, it's stated up front, so you know the mystery must lie elsewhere. I am in awe of the way each chapter manages to squeeze in a shock, and the way suspense is ramped up to such a degree towards the finish that I found myself feverishly reading it on a night time car journey by the light of my phone (I wasn't driving btw). When you break it down into its constituent parts, the plot consisted of a small number of people who between them held knowledge which would unlock a mystery, and during the course of the novel all of them had to meet up at separate times and be persuaded to share that information. Simple as. But crikey, what a fiendishly complicated job it must have been to keep track of who knew what at any given time. And then there's the constant witticisms. You come to expect it in a Harlan Coben novel, and however irritating it might be at times, I know I would miss them if they weren't there. "Everyone is a wiseass" observes a character at one point and I had to smile. In these books, they certainly are.
    • 4/5
      Harlan Coben introduces us to Detective Jack Broome of the Atlantic City police force. Broome has been troubled by an unsolved murder of Steward Green that occurred seventeen years ago leaving a wife and two children who cannot find closure because the body was never found. Now with a more recent case involving a lot of blood and no corpse, Broome begins to find similarities with other past unsolved cases.

      The suspense and mystery increase as Broome finds that a missing piece of the puzzle has returned to Atlantic City after seventeen years. Megan Pierce a happily married woman with two children living in northern New Jersey has returned to Atlantic City on an impulse where seventeen years ago she led a fast paced life as a stripper and was a former girlfriend of Steward Green. Megan tries to find some closure herself, but can she keep her husband Dave from finding out her life with him was all built on lies.

      As soon as you think you know who did it, he flips it and make it to a different character. I would recommend this book if you like suspense, excitement, and you want to a page turner. This book is all of that and more. 4 stars for an entertaining and enjoyable read.
    • 2/5
      disappointing but maybe because of the narrator
    • 4/5
      The plot centers around the yearly disappearance of men on Mardi Gras that has gone on for seventeen years in Atlantic City. Coben does an excellent job of throwing in twists and turns to keep you guessing until the end.
    • 4/5
      Another classic Harlan Coben novel. I love reading his books. It was easy to read and the plot was action packed from start to finish. It also had the Harlan Coben trademark of the plot twist right at the end. Love It!
    • 3/5
      I always enjoy his books!
    • 4/5
      Three people--a suburban housewife, a talented documentary photographer, and a detective--living lives they never wanted, hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect, will find that the past doesn't recede ... and that desperation and hunger can lurk behind even the prettiest facades.(summary from ISBN 0525952276)
    • 2/5
      I didn’t like this book at all. This is the second Harlan Coben I read and it will be the last. It’s preposterous to think that a woman who was forced to work in a low-end strip club would “miss” the misery after reclaiming her life and independence. Apparently Coben suffers from the idiotic male fantasy that women who are forced into striping at dives enjoy what they do. The ridiculous attitude continues with the protagonist’s husband who is a judgmental, chauvinistic pig. His behaviour around his mother (who suffers from Alzheimer’s) is nauseating. On top of the unrealistic characters doing unbelievable things, the police are incompetent morons and the plot lines are absurd.
    • 5/5
      One of the best I have read in a while. I love when an author can keep me guessing who the "bad guy" is until the last minute. This one took me totally by surprise. Truly enjoyed the suspense and all of the characters!
    • 3/5
      This is an ok book, 3 separate stories that come together Ray Levine is a photographer, Megan is a house wife with a past, Broome the policeman These 3 are loosely linked, when a rich playboy goes missing, Broome starts investigating but also so does some people hired by his Dad. People turn up dead there are a few twists and turns. There has been other murders during the Mardi Gras festival more closely. I kind of guessed near the end who was responsible for these crimes.
    • 3/5
      Pretty solid thriller, really fun to read and fast-paced, but I listened to the audiobook version, and only later found out that it is an "abridged" version, which means it's missing a lot of information, especially about the Ken and Barbie killers. It still works, but it kind pisses you off.
    • 4/5
      Maybe a testament to how good this book is: although I've been going through turmoil lately, I was able to read this book. Most of us find it difficult to concentrate on a book during bad times. But in this case, I could.Typical of a Harlan Coben novel, STAY CLOSE doesn't make the reader wait long for suspense. It's a simpler story than his usually are, though. His five-star books are more complex.
    • 3/5
      So, normally, I like Harlen Coben as an audio read in the car, to help keep me company while driving (and with my hands on the steering wheel, I can't bit my nails.) However, two things happened this time. Early into the book, my car CD player got cranky and stopped working. This was not a hardship because I took the book inside, and then the second "thing" occurred - I had to start packing our library for our move at the end of February. So win! I finished up the book while emptying 7 bookcases. As to the story, a pretty good one. I liked the characters this time round and there were a couple of interesting twists and diversions. I didn't form speculations as to "who done it" because my mind wandered recalling the plots of books I was packing. But, I still followed closely enough to this one to give it a thumbs up.
    • 4/5
      A comfortable read with just enough thrills, twists and wit to lift it above the average but not enough quite frankly to bring it up to Coben's usual standard. An easy stroll through American suburbia that detours into the hidden and often sordid underbelly of the mom and apple pie families and lifestyle. Harlan Coben would never mix metaphors however as egregiously as I just have. Megan seems to be living the American dream of a happy marriage, a loving husband and a comfortable life - but she's bored and misses her days as a stripper consorting with low-lives in a seedy Atlantic City club. Her husband Dave has no idea of her past and Megan thinks she has escaped that life until she is contacted by a woman she used to work with, Ray was a rising name in the world of photo-journalism but now he masquerades as a paparazzi, pretending to photograph the celebrity-obsessed or those wanting to impress. Like Megan, who was his girlfriend at the time, his glory days were spent in Atlantic City and the two of them were lovers. Finally there's Lieutenant Jack Bloom, a policeman who is obsessed with a cold case - the disappearance of a family man from a strip club in Atlantic City - and that's the point of intersection for the three main characters. It appears a murder has occurred in Atlantic City every Mardi Gras for the last 17 years, and it seems as though hidden secrets are about to be revealed, including Megan and Ray's involvement in murder. The story does not have too many surprises and is a reasonable stand-alone: it is not quite up to his usual high standard but still a lot better than most other writers at their best - Coben is always a delight.
    • 4/5
      I had a hard time reading it. Not sure if it was the book or myself not being a reading mood. But i ususally read his book in a couple days...
    • 4/5
      The plot unfolds around a entertainer who worked at a men's club turned housewife named Megan, a cop with a nagging cold case named Lt. Broom who was on the case at the time it happened, and a photographer named Ray who is haunted by a vision of blood. They are bound together by one night seventeen years ago and an event that touched each of their lives.It's a familiar plot that twists and turns its way to a satisfying and unusual ending. I didn't quite see it coming, nor the aftermath.The characters are well drawn but Ken and Barbie had the biggest impact on me; simply unforgettable and the stuff that nightmares are made of.This mystery will keep you guessing and keep you on the edge of your seat, as I said this was my first book by Harlan Coben and it will not be my last. Scott Brick’s narration was fantastic I just love his deep voice and was impressed with his characterizations. I will be seeking out more from him and I can see now why he has so many fans and I now count myself in that group!
    • 3/5
      Ehn. Predictable.
    • 4/5
      I had trouble getting into this Coben book, but it could be because I started reading it right before bed. The mystery takes place in Atlantic City, most of it occurring in the seamier parts near the Boardwalk. A man is killed on Mardi Gras, and this murder brings to mind another that occurred on the same night 17 years before. Somehow involved are a cop, a photographer, and several strippers (both past and present) from a local club: their lives were changed by what occurred that night. Throw in two psychopathic hitmen killers, and the story gets interesting.
    • 3/5
      Not as good as Coben's previous efforts - more linear and without the usual twists and turns. We knew there was some withheld information being saved up for the denouement, but no real surprises.