Mickey Bolitar’s life was mysterious and full of suspension. Starting off Mickey had his mom in rehab, dead dad, and living at Uncle Myron’s. Mickey and his family were full of adventures, always traveling before the accident where his dad died. Mickey moved into a new school and met new people. He met a girl named Ashley later becoming his mysterious girlfriend soon to be missing. Now Mickey has a missing girlfriend, dead dad, and his mom in rehab.

The characterization of this book is interesting. It makes you feel as if you were close to the characters, yet it does not give a full description of how they are. As the book does not give you much information about the characters it allows you to imagine them instead of giving you a description of their identity. I enjoy how Coben gives clear details about the position that a character takes place in the story. For example, whenever Bat Lady, a old woman in an old house that only comes out at night, told Mickey “Your father isn’t dead, he is very much alive” it gave her a very important position in the book because it conveys how Bat Lady knows the answers to all the mysteries around town (Coben 3).

Mickey has to solve many mysteries with the collaboration of Ema and Spoon. Ema is a goth fat girl that Mickey saved from embarrassment in gym class, and Spoon is ”A kid who would definitely fit in the geek camp”(Coben 16). Something else I enjoyed from this book is that whenever you think you figured out the mystery, you have not. The book is so interesting as soon as you read that first line you just want to read more, but as you read the last line it leaves you hanging not knowing what will happen next.

I totally recommend this book to teenagers that enjoy all about mysteries and crime scenes. I would recommend this for teenagers that do not always obey parents rules. I would also recommend this for teenagers that are in relationships because this an example of what they would do for their partner. This is also a good book for people that love reading books that leave you in cliffhangers. Another recommendation would be for elder people that want to bring back memories of when they were younger.