Boy From the Woods, The

The Boy From The Woods is the first book in the Wilde series by award-winning, best-selling American author, Harlan Coben. When high-profile lawyer and TV show host Hester Crimstein's sixteen-year-old grandson Matthew asks for her help, she doesn't hesitate. Matthew is worried for his much-bullied classmate, Naomi Pine, absent some days now from their school.

Hester consults her old friend Westville Police Chief Oren Carmichael, then visits Naomi's home but, prevented from seeing the girl for herself, Hester decides to involve Matthew's very capable godfather, Wilde. With conflicting information from an obstructive father and absent mother, Hester's extreme reaction, an appeal on live TV, backfires on several levels when Wilde quickly locates the girl, participating in a teen challenge game.

So when Naomi goes missing again, some weeks later, her father can't get anyone to take it very seriously. He convinces Wilde to look into it, who concludes that Naomi has left intentionally. But when her chief tormenter, Crash Maynard goes missing soon after, the reaction is very different. Suddenly wealthy TV producer Dash Maynard and his wife want to engage, despite having their own complement of security personnel, the services of Wilde and Hester.

A kidnapping? A hoax? Or have the two teens run off together somewhere?

Coben starts the story off fairly innocuously, even giving it a bit of a cosy-crime feel, but as it progresses, things quickly get real and not at all benign. He gives his characters plenty of entertaining banter, distracts the reader from a couple of very neat twists with a few red herrings, and includes some great deductive work in the lead up to a dramatic climax.

Wilde is a unique character: his background, apparently fending for himself in the woods from a young age, has endowed him with sharpened senses and superior survival skills; his further education and military service enhanced and expanded his abilities; watching how he uses them is a delight, and his insightful interpretation of human behaviour makes his inner monologue interesting.

The support cast is also not ordinary: the breathtaking audacity and consummate ease with which Coben's presidential candidate manipulates the media makes him very Trump-like; seventy-year-old Hester is a force of nature, "never avoided a controversy if she could create one"; and some characters have definitely lost sight of their moral compass while others are clearly very good actors.

With some personal issues still unresolved, Coben leaves plenty of scope for further books in the series, and the sequel, The Match, is eagerly anticipated. Very entertaining crime fiction.