The pace is frenetic in ‘Run Away’
Twists, turns around every corner. Book review,
Most parents will go to great lengths to ensure their children’s safety. Simon Greene is no exception.
But when the Wall Street financial adviser tries to rescue his daughter from drug addiction and a bad relationship, she slips through his grasp and forces him to follow a trail fraught with peril, surprises and secrets.
The plot twists in Harlan Coben’s new thriller “Run Away” (Grand Central, 384 pp. ★★★☆) – out this week – abound, even to the last page. As Greene gets closer to finding his daughter, Paige, the revelations develop at a frenetic pace.
A viral fight in the park. A shooting. A murder. Then another. And another. A sexual assault. A hit man.
A cult. And secrets. Ohso-many secrets.
After an initially slow setup to establish Greene’s family life and relationship – or rather, lack of relationship – with Paige, the bombshells start to drop and just don’t stop, making this a pageturner that readers won’t want to put down.
At the outset of the novel, Greene finds Paige strung out and playing the guitar in Central Park. As he tries to talk to her, he ends up punching out Aaron – her enabler, dealer and partner – and she runs away.
Cue the chase.
Greene and his wife, Ingrid, begin their search at a drug den, and that’s when things start to go very wrong. Meanwhile, a hit man is on a murder spree, and a private investigator is hot on his tail trying to find out how his victims are linked.
The hit man’s love story is a slightly distracting thread but does its job as a device to pull in a strange cult whose importance is later revealed.
When a desperate Greene and P.I. Elena Ramirez share intel on their seemingly unrelated cases, they find themselves in danger and Greene and his family under suspicion for one of the murders.
As Coben writes: “The more pieces he got, the less clear the final image was becoming.”
As Ramirez and Greene crisscross paths and plot lines, he finds out more about his daughter, but he also turns inward. He wonders how he could have prevented Paige’s spiral. Could he have done more to protect her? Why didn’t she feel comfortable coming to him as her life deteriorated?
When another family tragedy hits amid his quest to find Paige, Greene is torn between sitting next to a hospital bed and toiling away or continuing to track his daughter, no matter the cost. He chooses the latter.
Familial ties are what “Run Away” is built on and how the mysterious murders and Paige’s disappearance ultimately are solved. And even after what appears to be the climax of the story and wrap-up of loose ends, one major bombshell awaits in the last few paragraphs.
It’s a secret so major that it will leave readers wondering how they would handle it long after they put the book down.