Harlan Coben - Promise Me

It's been six years since entertainment agent Myron Bolitar last played superhero, but all that changes when he asks two neighborhood high school students to make him a promise: that they will call him if they are ever in a bind but are afraid to call their parents.
Several nights later, the call comes at 2 am, and true to his word, Myron picks up one of the girls in midtown Manhattan and drives her to a quiet cul-de-sac in NJ where she says her friend lives.
The next day, the girl's parents discover that their daughter is missing. And that Myron was the last person to see her. Desperate to fulfill a well-intentioned promise turned nightmarishly wrong, Myron races to find her before she's gone forever. But this past will not be buried so easily--for trouble has always stalked him, and his loved ones often suffer. Now Myron must decide once and for all who he is and what he will stand up for if he is to have any hope of saving a young girl's life.

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Myron Bolitar probably won't make any promises to anyone again soon. When he gave his promise to two young girls it was made out of the moment and impulsive. He didn't know then that it would become a nightmare. 3 weeks after he made the girls promise to give him a call whenever they are in trouble he receives a call in the middle of the night. Aimee Biel, daugther of his long-term friend Claire Biel, calls him and makes him promise to not tell her parents about it. She wants him to pick her up and drive her back to her friends house, only this house isn't her friends house. Myron smells the whole situation is fishy but he trusts Aimee when she leaves the car and enters the front garden through the gate. It doesn't take long until he hears she never was at her friends house and she didn't come back home the next day.
Then there is Katie Rochester who vanished shortly before. They both went to the same High School and Katie's last sign was a withdrawal from an ATM machine. Funnily enough Aimee used the same ATM machine shortly before she made her call to Myron.

Katie is considered a runaway but things don't add up with Aimee's disappearance. Katie has been seen once since her parents notified authorities about her 18-year old daugther's disappearance. Aimee's 18, too, but the investigating police officers have a hard time to believe her to be a runaway, too.

What happened to the girls ? Where did they go and what made them supposedly run away ?

Myron promises Claire to get her daugther back and the clocks ticking. With more then one subject Myron has to figure out what Aimee had to do with two teachers and how his ex-boyfriends father comes into the game.
In the end nothing is like it seems but everything is connected.

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Book 8 of the Myron Bolitar series and the first book by Harlan Coben I've ever read. I enjoyed reading it even if I didn't know the characters and their history. I liked how everything was easily connected to each other but still a surprise and unexpected for the reader. I don't know what happened to Myron or his friend Win in the past but I will definitely know what's going to happen in the future. :-)

Rating:
Visit Harlan Coben.

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Dutton Adult (April 25, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0525949496
ISBN-13: 978-0525949497