Harlan Coben seems to be all over the place these days. His name keeps popping up here and there. It's not really surprising, given that he has written a number of increasingly competent and popular thrillers over the past several years. But the reason for his recent notoriety may well be due to water cooler word of his latest novel JUST ONE LOOK, which is far and away his best work to date.

Coben's recent novels have a unifying theme running through them: disappearance. This is not to say that all of his novels are alike; the opposite in fact is true. JUST ONE LOOK also deals with a disappearance, but in this case we know exactly what happens to the missing person. The question that keeps the pages turning and the plot chugging along is the "why" behind the event.

The person asking "why" is Grace Lawson, a suburbanite who splits her time between her work as an artist and her duties as wife to Jack Lawson and mother to their two children. Grace's placid life is shattered when she picks up pictures of a recent family outing at her local photomat store and finds a picture in the group that does not belong. It seems much older than the other pictures and is not one of her family, but of five people. Grace does not recognize four of them, but the fifth person looks like a much younger version of her husband. When Grace shows the photo to Jack that evening, he denies that he's that person.

Later that night, however, Jack makes a hushed phone call, drives off with the picture and does not return. Over the next several days Grace does a dangerous juggling act, attempting to shield her children from Jack's absence while trying to determine the reason for it, as well as the secret behind the photo. When Jack calls Grace shortly after his disappearance, stating that he needs some "space," she realizes that he is in terrible danger. What she does not realize, however, is that she and her children are in dire jeopardy as well. Grace acquires some likely and unlikely allies, some of who seem to know bits and pieces of the puzzle of her husband's life. But when Grace discovers that her home has been under video surveillance, she realizes that the only person who she can trust is herself.

Coben throws several interesting twists into JUST ONE LOOK. For one, the reader learns almost immediately what has happened to Jack. Grace also undergoes an interesting transformation, from secure hausfrau to avenging angel, even as she is dragged kicking and screaming toward it. There is also a villain, a shadowy, terrifying character named Eric Wu who is described by one of the principals in JUST ONE LOOK as being so scary that ... well, read the book. I won't give it away, as it's but one more example of Coben's ongoing growth as a writer.

But what is truly fascinating in JUST ONE LOOK is the manner in which Coben weaves the undercarriage of this tale and then slowly uncovers it. Coben's narrative pacing has never been better. This is a complex tale, and in the hands of a lesser writer the explanation would have been a hurried, wrap-it-up affair. Not so with Coben and JUST ONE LOOK; matters continue to be revealed even on the final page. Even though it's only May, JUST ONE LOOK may be the beach book of this long, hot summer.