Shivering in the suburbs

Unemployment and a volatile stock market, terror in New York and environmental disaster in the Gulf. And if that's not enough -- what about drugs at the high school and will my child be able to go to college and find a job afterwards? No doubt, there's a lot we can worry about. Perhaps that's why we like roller coasters and horror movies where we can be scared in comfort. I'm sure that's why I enjoy thrillers like Harlen Coben's lastest suspense novel, Caught, which enthralled me from the comfort of my armchair. Coben is a master of using the commonplace minutae of suburban life as a boomerang. Cell phones and Facebook pages, college applications and support groups, local news and minivans can be agents of destruction as well as status and convenience. All are used here with devilish effect here by Coben. The story goes like this: Social worker Dan Mercer goes to help a young client in trouble and finds himself entrapped in a sex abuse sting operation by ambitious TV newswoman Wendy Tynes. Then Dan is linked to the recent disappearance of a high school senior, honors student Haley McWaid. As the case against Dan grows, Wendy begins to have doubts about his guilt. Her investigative curiosity prompts Wendy to probe Dan's long-ago college days at Princeton and why Dan's other roommates have also been targeted by recent misfortunes and scandals. Coben is true to form in Caught, a suspenseful thriller that cleverly touches on the underside of suburban life. While I enjoyed Caught, my favorite Coben novel thus far remains Just One Look, where one odd photograph in a package of newly-developed-and-processed photos (doesn't that now seem quaint in this brave new digital age) immediately upends the life of Coben's housewife heroine. Read, enjoy, and don't forget to lock up before you go to bed!