MISSING YOU by Harlan Coben

Finished Su 8/17/18

This was one of the books that Cindy gave me when I visited her place last week; 2015/ paperback.

Coben doesn't provide great literature, but nobody can crank out a thriller the way he does.

Kat Donovan is a NY cop as were her father and grandfather.

Two Story-lines-

1) Kat is single and one of her friends signs her up to a dating site. On the app she reads a post and sees a photo from the love of her life who she hadn't seen or heard from in eighteen years. Where is Jeff and why did he leave her?

2) Her father was killed many years before and a convicted killer is dying. He confessed to the murder, but Kat never felt that this was true.


A young computer hacker, Brandon, contacts Kat. He tells her that his mother, Dana, lives in Connecticut and met a man on this same dating site. She's been gone for days, and he is worried.

It turns out that many men and woman on the site have been lured to a remote farm. When they arrive they are attacked, placed in an underground bunker/coffin, and all of their money is extorted.

Titus is the brains behind this sinister operation, and Renaldo is his chief lieutenant.

Dana briefly escapes her coffin, but not the farm, and Titus goes into NYC to bring Brandon to the farm. He will torture Brandon until Dana returns to the farm house and gives up her money.

Kat has called in the FBI and is in hot pursuit. Just as Titus has shot Brandon in the knee, Kat draws her gun and kills Titus.

Dana has previously killed Dimitry, the farm's computer expert, with an ax, and Renaldo is taken out by the zombie-like hostages. Renaldo was coming back to kill all of the people in their locked underground compartments, but they cling to him so that he's not able to shoot them and pummel him to death.

Later, Kat learns that his father was a closeted gay man and throughout her childhood he had been having an affair with a black male prostitute, Sugar.

Kat's father was conflicted about his sexual identity and he was filled with rage that he had to leave Sugar. One night he was spotted by Jeff and Kat's father's partner, Stagger. Jeff shot her father because he might have beaten Sugar to death. Stagger puts a cover-up in play. Nobody would believe them about how the shooting actually happened, and also they wanted to keep Kat's father's sexual proclivities secret. This is why Jeff had existed her life.
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In the end, Kat and Jeff live happily ever after.

The novel's title is from a 1984 song by John Waite, 'Missing You'.