Stay Close - Harlan Coben

Title: Stay Close
Author: Harlan Coben
Genre: Crime
Rating: 2.5/5
# pages: 399
Date read: April, 2022

Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer, but now finds himself in a dead-end job posing as paparazzo. Broome is a detective who can’t let go of a cold case.

Three people living lives they never wanted are hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect. 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 facades—they will discover the hard truth that the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper-thin as a heartbeat.


The third book I've read by Harlan Coben and unfortunately the weakest. Can't put my finger on why exactly, but part of it is definitely that it came across as a lot less realistic than the others... especially when it came to 'Ken' and 'Barbie'.

I'm glad this isn't the first book I've read by him, or I probably wouldn't have continued with any of the others. Now I'm more inclined to give him another chance.

Still Life - Louise Penny

Title: Still Life (Inspector Gamache #1)
Author: Louise Penny
Genre: Crime
Rating: 3/5
# pages: Audiobook ~10hrs
Date read: April, 2022

The discovery of a dead body in the woods on Thanksgiving Weekend brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues from the Sûreté du Québec to a small village in the Eastern Townships.

Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well-loved artist Jane Neal, especially any of the residents of Three Pines - a place so free from crime it doesn't even have its own police force. But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets...


Not my usual fare (I tend to stay away from detective novels), but it came highly recommended and I liked it. It was such a relief to read a crime novel where the emphasis was on solving the case, and not on how much blood and gore was encountered along the way.

I liked inspector Gamache and the citizens of Three Pines. There was a thread or two left hanging, but they might be picked up in a later book.