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Just One Look

Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 12 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 12 weeks

An ordinary snapshot causes a mother's world to unravel in an instant.

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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Here is yet another example of Corben's gifted storytelling. Carolyn McCormick expertly expresses the wide range of emotions experienced by Grace Lawson as she attempts to figure out how and why a twenty-year-old picture turns up in her recently developed photos, and why her husband has disappeared after recognizing himself in the old photograph. While the production's subtle sound effects neither enhance nor detract from the story, the listener is most definitely engaged by the rising tension of McCormick's delivery. S.K.P. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 29, 2004
      Just one look at Coben's latest stand-alone thriller (after No Second Chance
      ) highlights the author's customary strengths (swift pacing, strong lead characters) but also his weaknesses, including limited originality and, in this case, a plot so complicated that many final pages are devoted to sorting it out. The premise is simple enough: suburban housewife Grace Lawson collects some pictures at the local Photomat; inexplicably, one is an old print depicting her husband, Jack, with other college students; when Grace shows the photo to Jack, he drives away—and disappears. Grace's hunt for her missing husband, whom we learn has been kidnapped (but why? and Coben fans will note that the author's last novel also hinged on a kidnapped family member), sweeps her back into a nightmare she thought she'd escaped: the evening years ago when she survived a rock concert rampage, occasioned by a shooting that left many dead. Meanwhile, Eric Wu, a—dare we say?—inscrutable martial-arts killer who has snatched Jack for reasons unknown, menaces assorted folk. Eventually Grace, aided by a Gotti-like mobster whose child was killed in the rampage, gloms on to Wu, as well as on to Jack's sister, a high-powered attorney who, it turns out, is representing the guy who started the rampage by firing his gun. Only he didn't start the rampage after all, and then there's the rock star who vanished after the shooting and resultant mayhem—what's he now doing on Grace's doorstep? This is all as complicated as a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and about as hard to figure out, although in the midst of the murk there are some wonderful character touches. Coben can write thrillers that lift readers off their seats; this one, alas, will have them slumping. Agent, Lisa Erbach Vance at the Aaron Priest Agency
      . (May)

      Forecast:
      This will hit lists hard, pushed by a
      Today author appearance and major ad/promo, but readers looking for the kind of thrills found in
      No Second Chance won't be happy.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      After the mysterious appearance of a twenty-year-old photograph in her Photomat packet and her husband's middle-of-the-night disappearance, Grace Lawson's seemingly perfect suburban life undergoes a seismic shift. Who are the people in the snapshot? Why did her husband deny being one of them? As she searches for answers, more questions arise, involving police, private investigators, neighbors, and mobsters. Narrator Carrington MacDuffie keeps the pacing sharp. Her accents are true, her vocal control impressive. As Grace realizes her marriage has been built on lies, MacDuffie's tone grows appropriately paranoid. Her characterization of Eric Wu, a reptilian hit man with martial art expertise, is chilling. The combination of Harlan Coben's intricate plotting and crisp, understated writing and Carrington MacDuffie's smart, lively performance guarantees listeners that no nail will be left unbitten. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 7, 2004
      Coben's latest thriller (after No Second Chance
      ) is a riveting, albeit perplexing, nightmare that finds hapless New Jersey wife and mother Grace Lawson dealing with an assortment of fearful developments, including a missing spouse, a terrifyingly adaptable hit man, deceitful friends, hidden agendas and ghosts from the past. Reader MacDuffie wisely takes her cues from Coben's prose. When he describes a policeman as "patronizing," she lends just the right vocal inflection to his lines, then quickly switches to the sarcastic tones of feisty Grace. And for the novel's most ingratiating character, Charlene Swain, MacDuffie's voice subtly shifts from vague to vital as the Percodan-popping, bored-to-tears housewife rises above her ennui to give Grace a helping hand in combating the wicked hit man Wu. Coben fills his thriller with unoriginal characters (including a murderer on death row, a rock-and-roller in comeback mode and a gentrified mobster with revenge on his mind), but MacDuffie's skillful interpretation brings the characters and action into sharp focus. Simultaneous release with the Dutton hardcover (Forecasts, Mar. 29).

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  • English

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