Six Years by Harlan Coben

Six Years is a diversion from Harlan Coben’s usual formula.  In this stand alone thriller we meet Jake Fisher, a successful professor in a small prestigious New England college.  Six years earlier, Jake had a three month fling with Natalie Avery at a small town retreat several miles from the campus.  He thought he had found his soul mate when suddenly she ends their relationship and announces she is marrying her childhood sweetheart, Todd Sanderson.  She makes Jake promise to never contact them again.

Then six years later Jake sees the obituary of Todd Sanderson on the college website.  Still in love with Natalie, he decides to break his promise and attend Sanderson’s funeral in South Carolina.  Jake learns that Sanderson was brutally murdered and is stunned to find the dead man’s grieving wife is not Natalie.

Jake’s desire to find Natalie turns into an obsession.  He soon learns that Natalie has reason to be hidden and protected from a danger that Jake stumbles across.  He is beaten, kidnapped and shot in an effort to make him reveal Natalie’s whereabouts, something he does not know.  The deeper he digs the more he uncovers clues, secrets and betrayals that put him and Natalie deeper in danger.  Yet all the warnings serve to strengthen his perseverance to find the only woman he has ever loved and to try and save her life.

In Six Years, Coben is at his best, writing a suspense thriller with a creative, complex and compelling plotline. Yet the premise is simple, an ordinary man taking extraordinary measures…the classic definition of a hero.  Coben reveals layer after layer of mystery and intrigue, methodically exposing new information and tying it all together into a believable package…well done.