No Second Chance: A Suspense Thriller

A

This story starts out with surgeon Marc Seidman shot almost dead in his home, his wife shot very dead, and his baby girl kidnapped.Marc is admirable in his desperate determination to get his child back. He also has an admirable profession — surgery to repair deformities and damage to the faces of children all over the world. He hasn’t always handled his relationships well though.The plot is extremely intricate and rich in misdirection. There are some wonderful characters — like the gun nut with the Internet bride who volunteers to help Marc find his daughter — and the former child TV star turned killer. The love between her and her murderous boyfriend is both monstrous and touching. Love and greed fight for the spotlight in this book.There’s millions of dollars of ransom money involved, which makes the cops suspect Marc of being the mastermind behind the criminal activity. Quite a number of people die violently on the twisty way to the surprise ending. No lack of action in No Second Chance!I read this book compulsively. It’s one of Harlan Coben’s best.

A great read. Harlan Coben is such an excellent author.

NO SECOND CHANCE, a stand-alone thriller by Harlan Coben is well worth the read. This is my ninth Coben novel and it is by far the author's best. In most of his novels Coben highlights some current social or moral issue. In No Second Chance he illuminates the lucrative baby kidnapping, smuggling and selling racket. This gripping novel opens with Dr. Mark Seidman, father of six-month-old Tara, waking up in the hospital after 11 days of being in a coma. He is told that he is the victim of a shooting and lucky to be alive. He has no recollection of the shooting. He is also informed by a local detective and an FBI special agent that his wife died in the brutal shooting and his daughter is missing and believed to have been kidnapped. As in all Coben novels the venue is the New Jersey/New York area. Dr. Seidman is a trained pediatric ophthalmologist who, along with his partner, Zia Leroux, specialize in facial reconstruction in poverty stricken countries in Asia and Africa. Coben, known for his multiple and complex plots grabs the reader's interest from the very start and doesn't let up until the end. While local law enforcement and the FBI have pretty much given up on the case, Dr. Seidman weaves a path of death and destruction over the next 18-months while searching for his daughter. The writer makes sure Marc Seidman is surrounded by some interesting characters. His life-long friend, Lenny, who is also his lawyer; ex-girlfriend and ex-FBI agent, Rachel; and country-boy, Verne, to name a few, all make for a wonderful and supportive cast of friends. Even the bad-guy characters are well developed. Coben, known for his multiple and complex plots grabs the reader's interest from the very start and doesn't let up until the end. The book's ending is a shocker. I guarantee the reader will have a tought time putting this book down. I give No Second Chance a positive 5-star rating.

Another great read by Harlin.