Just One Look

From Wikipedia Just One Look is a 2004 novel by Harlan Coben. It is a stand-alone novel but does contain at least one reference to his Myron Bolitar novels. The plot centers around a woman whose whole life changes one day upon taking home a roll of pictures and finding one that does not belong. Read more - Shopping-Enabled Wikipedia on Amazon From Publishers Weekly 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. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. An ordinary snapshot causes a suburban mother’s world to unravel in an instant. When Grace Lawson picks up a newly developed set of family photographs, there is a picture that doesn’t belong — a photo from at least twenty years ago. In the photo are five people, four Grace can’t recognize and one that looks strikingly like her husband, Jack. When Jack sees the photo, he denies he’s the man in it. But later that night, while Grace lies in bed waiting, he drives away in the family’s minivan without an explanation, taking the photograph with him. Not knowing where he went or why he left, Grace struggles alone to shield her children from Jack’s absence in the days that follow. Each passing day brings only doubts about herself and her marriage and yet more unanswered questions about Jack, along with the realization that there are others looking for Jack and the photograph — including one fierce, silent killer who will not be stopped from finding his quarry, no matter who or what stands in his way. When the police won’t help her, and neighbors and friends alike seem to have agendas of their own, she must confront the dark corners of her own tragic past to keep her children safe and learn the truth that might bring her husband home. Living a lie for 21 years - and now the past has caught up with him... A first-rate thriller from the SUNDAY TIMES No.1 bestselling author of SIX YEARS. Grace Lawson is living a happy, straightforward life in the suburbs with her husband, Jack, and two young children. But that security is about to come to a brutal end. For when Grace picks up a set of holiday snaps, amongst them is one shot that doesn't fit: a faded image of a life that Grace doesn't recognise and of her husband as she never knew him. Within 12 hours, Jack has disappeared, a brutal hitman is stalking her family and the safe world she knows has been turned upside down. And all Grace can see is that the past is coming back to haunt the present and people are getting hurt... Living a lie for 21 years - and now the past has caught up with him ... A first-rate thriller from the SUNDAY TIMES No. 1 bestselling author of HOLD TIGHT