The Innocent by Harlan Coben

I read a Coben book a few years back and remembered it to be quite the page turning mystery. The Innocent proves no different.

The book starts out in second person describing a scene involving...well you...at a frat party when you are in your early 20s. You get into a fight with one of the frat boys and it takes a bad direction with the person on the other side of you ending up dead. Was it an accident? Could it have been prevented? You can't answer the questions. You go to jail for 4 years and come out to start a new life.

The 'you' in the story isn't really you of course but rather Matt Hunter. Nine years after his release from prison his beautiful wife, Olivia, is pregnant and they are about to close on a house in the neighborhood Mark grew up in. They get matching camera phones to keep in better contact with each other now that Olivia is pregnant.

Matt gets a picture message on his phone and his whole world is turned upside down. Suddenly the people in his life might not be who they said they were, people are following him and then turning up dead. The cops are looking at him with a close eye because of the past conviction. Not wanting to ever have to go to prison again Matt starts running and a twisty complicated story follows.

A quick, fun read that kept me glued to the pages. 4 stars (probably really 3.5 but I'll give it the extra half star for keeping me turning the pages).