Finished: Don't Let Go (Coben) Another great page-turner by Harlan Coben! Napoleon Dumas, Nap as he's known, is a 33 year old New Jersey detective, still living in the same town he grew up in. Fifteen years before, when Nap was a high school senior, his twin brother, Leo, was killed in a horrific train track accident, along with his girlfriend, Diana...the daughter of the town police chief. Though many theories were tossed around, from double suicide, to drug induced tragic accident, Nap has never been able to put the past behind him. He's always wanted to know exactly what happened that horrific night. It also happens to be the night that his girlfriend, Maura, ran away from town, never to contact him again. Both of those losses, plus the death of his father in the recent years, has left Nap flapping in the wind. He's very close to retired police chief, Augie, Diana's father. As a matter of fact, Augie brought Nap into the Police Academy and taught him everything he knew, which has created in Nap, an excellent detective, but one who will not give up. Never able to get over Maura leaving him, Nap is shocked when he's called into consult on a case where another of his old classmates, Rex, now a cop as well, has been executed by the side of the rode. The shocker, though, is that Maura's fingerprints have been found all over the car! As Nap does further digging, with the help of Diana's best friend in high school, Ellie, and now Nap's only and best friend as well....they scrutinize their old yearbook and realize that Leo, Maura, Rex and two other students, Hank and Beth, all wore little pins that indicated they were members of the secret "Conspiracy Club". They were very keen on speculating about the old missile base that was constructed in their town in the 1950's, and abandoned in the 1970's. The Conspiracy Club was convinced that there were still secret government doings going on. And, they were correct. The old missile base was being used to interrogate post-911 terrorist suspects. When the kids get too close one night, Maura's face is caught on camera, and she is chased mercilessly by scary men. She gets away and stays on the run for fifteen years. Leo and Diana aren't so lucky. They are also in the woods that night, seemingly also scoping out the base, but at the same time Maura is spotted by the men, gunshots ring out, and Diana and Leo are killed (or so we think). Their bodies are then placed on the railroad tracks to make their deaths look like a terrible, teenage accident. The bad guys never realized that Hank, Rex and Beth were also part of the club, and they were left alone. However, fifteen years later, Rex has now been executed by the side of the road, and a few days later, Hank is murdered! Beth, now lives in Michigan as a surgeon, and has changed her name and is basically off the grid. Nap, the dog with a bone, begins to put all the pieces together, and confronts the bad guy who was on Maura's tail for so long. The bad guy gets the best of Nap, and is water boarding him to find out what all he knows, when he is killed from behind. Maura has come to the rescue. She's been watching Nap from afar and risks her life to save his. Yes, they fall into bed and declare their love for each other...and Maura promises not to run from Nap again. She had done it only to protect him all those years ago. She will stay with him now and see this through. Nap finally finds Beth, and when he hears the real truth of that night, he's shocked. It's not at all what he expected, and sheds a bad light on his beloved brother Leo...who, by the way, Nap talks to throughout the book. It's so poignant and sad. :-( Anyway, in the end, it ends up that Diana had been planning to break up with Leo, so Leo had convinced the Conspiracy Club to take Diana out to the woods that night and get her high on drugs, which she never did. They agreed to help Leo...well, all but Maura. Maura refused, which was why she was by herself in another part of the woods that night, actually scoping out the base. When Maura got too close, and was captured on camera, and the spotlights flew on and she ran....Diana, who was completely out of it on the drugs, ran screaming towards the spotlights from their different spot in the woods. The men at the base opened fire, thinking maybe one of their prisoners had escaped. Their gunfire did kill Diana, but not Leo. When Police Chief Augie was called in to investigate the ruckus, he arrived to find Leo cradling his only daughter, babbling about how he was sorry and what a horrible plan they had to drug her just because she was going to break up with him. Augie, completely distraught, takes out his gun and shoots Leo in the head. :-( The government guy helps Augie place the two kids on the train tracks and then Augie went home to put on the best act of his life. The bad guys continue to hunt for Maura so they can see what all she saw...and the other kids are safe until the day fifteen years later that Hank, in a mentally unstable rant, talks about the whole thing in front of Augie! When Augie realizes that Hank, Rex and Beth were also involved in Diana's death, he begins taking his revenge. Thankfully Nap gets to Beth before Augie, but he's devastated to find out that Augie was responsible for Leo's death. The only good thing is that Nap and Maura are finally together and can close that high school chapter of their lives. Nap finally, sadly, says goodbye to Leo. Naturally there's so much more detail to the book, much more character development, which makes you feel close to each of the characters, but recapping all that would take way too long. Love my Harlan Coben books!! :-)