Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Caught
    Unavailable
    Caught
    Unavailable
    Caught
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    Caught

    Written by Harlan Coben

    Narrated by Carrington MacDuffie and Danny Campbell

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense comes a fast-paced, emotion-packed novel about guilt, grief, and our capacity to forgive

    17-year-old Haley McWaid is a good girl, the pride of her suburban New Jersey family, captain of the lacrosse team, headed off to college next year with all the hopes and dreams her doting parents can pin on her. Which is why, when her mother wakes one morning to find that Haley never came home the night before, and three months quickly pass without word from the girl, the community assumes the worst.
    Wendy Tynes is a reporter on a mission, to identify and bring down sexual predators via elaborate--and nationally televised--sting operations. Working with local police on her news program Caught in the Act, Wendy and her team have publicly shamed dozens of men by the time she encounters her latest target. Dan Mercer is a social worker known as a friend to troubled teens, but his story soon becomes more complicated than Wendy could have imagined.
    In a novel that challenges as much as it thrills, filled with the astonishing tension and unseen suburban machinations that have become Coben's trademark, Caught tells the story of a missing girl, the community stunned by her loss, the predator who may have taken her, and the reporter who suddenly realizes she can't trust her own instincts about this story-or the motives of the people around her.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 23, 2010
    ISBN9780739385210
    Unavailable
    Caught
    Author

    Harlan Coben

    With more than seventy million books in print worldwide, Harlan Coben is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of numerous suspense novels, including Don't Let Go, Home, and Fool Me Once, as well as the multi-award-winning Myron Bolitar series. His books are published in forty-three languages around the globe and have been number one bestsellers in more than a dozen countries. He lives in New Jersey.

    More audiobooks from Harlan Coben

    Related to Caught

    Related audiobooks

    Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      I Pursued A Killer

      Oct 12, 2023

      I Pursued A Killer
      4 min read

    • Article

      Small World

      Aug 10, 2018

      Small World
      5 min read

    • Article

      BANGED UP A Mother’s Story

      Oct 10, 2022

      BANGED UP A Mother’s Story
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Perfect Man Who Wasn't

      Mar 6, 2018

      The Perfect Man Who Wasn't
      24 min read

    • Article

      Banged Up

      Oct 10, 2022

      Banged Up
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Death of Tyler Clementi

      Sep 1, 2021

      The Death of Tyler Clementi
      7 min read

    • Article

      Reading CORNER

      Apr 2, 2023

      How well do you really know your friend group? For parents I think this will be one of those “what if?” novels. It’s a domestic thriller about a group of middle-class people and it plays right into the anxieties linked with raising kids in these tric

      2 min read

    • Article

      Aussie Underbelly

      Oct 30, 2022

      An unsolved murder is central to the plot of All That’s Left Unsaid, but it’s so much more than a crime thriller. Family and friendship, the immigrant experience, racism and perfectionism are all themes that are explored within the pages of this rela

      3 min read

    • Article

      ...publish A Children’s Book

      Sep 15, 2020

      Flicking open the front cover of the book, my eyes dart to a photo of my daughter, Maddie, six, and me, and I bend down so she can see it, too. ‘It’s us, Mummy!’ she says, grinning widely, excitedly wrapping her arms around me and expressing her happ

      2 min read

    • Article

      Read This Now

      Sep 28, 2021

      Get exactly 100 words into Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, Crossroads, and you know something’s up with the protagonist. Russ Hildebrandt is an assistant pastor at First Reformed Church in suburban Illinois. It’s Christmas 1971, and Russ can’t think of

      1 min read

    • Article

      What To Read This Summer

      Jun 5, 2020

      What To Read This Summer
      8 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Chin, Murray, and More

      Aug 10, 2021

      This week, we're eyeing new titles from YZ Chin and Sabina Murray. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Chin, Murray, and More appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      This Is Not Justice

      Oct 12, 2022

      This Is Not Justice
      37 min read

    • Article

      Mary Sanchez: Daisy Coleman’s Death Shines A Light On What We Still Haven’t Learned About Sexual Assault

      Aug 7, 2020

      This time, the postings on social media about Daisy Coleman are arriving with the respect that she always deserved, that all young girls deserve. It’s damnable that they’re arriving too late. There are notes of RIP; for Rest in Power. And messages fr

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Devil You Know

      Mar 25, 2020

      The Devil You Know
      10 min read

    • Article

      BANGED UP A Mother's Story

      Oct 10, 2022

      BANGED UP A Mother's Story
      11 min read

    Reviews for Caught

    4/5

    802 ratings84 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      A high school girl goes missing; the police and a reporter work the case to find the predator.Oh dear, another read that just didn't hold my attention. And, that was a shocker because I really enjoy Coben's standalones. I must say that I did enjoy the prologue and looked forward to the story, but as it continued I never fully connected. When a few new characters (and there were many) were introduced, I disengaged some more. I did enjoy the ending, though. Ultimately, only truly liking the beginning and the ending does not make a great read. I'm glad to be moving on.Originally posted on: Thoughts of Joy
    • 4/5
      A great mystery. Moves along at a great pace and has plenty of twists and turns that will keep you guessing right to the end.
    • 1/5
      I had to read this for a Reader's Advisory seminar, and I must say that these cookie cutter, gimmick filled, cornball "thrillers" are really about as close to literature as an earthworm is to a fresh Maine lobster.Hard working single mother, NRA right winger with a heart of gold, rumpled detective, all the cliches are here...some call it literature, I guess.
    • 5/5
      I always enjoy Harlan Coben's writing, but he outdid himself this time, including a special little surprise for the reader. His writing is always so complete, without any loose ends, or anomalies... and there was something about the beginning of the story that.. just bugged me... it didn't fit, and it was not like Mr. Coben. Not until the very last 10 pages, did he finally explain.. at which point everything came together in a very delightful, entertaining, surprising way.
      Definitely my favorite of his works.
    • 5/5
      Dan Mercer comes from an impoverished past, growing up in foster care after his parents die. He works with trouble kids, trying to keep them on the right path. Until the night, Chynna calls, and life has he knows it is over. Arriving at the house with the red door, Dan feels uneasy, but is here to make sure Chynna is okay. And then it happens, he is "Caught" on the tv and accused of being an internet predator...

      The evidence quickly piles against him, as he denies the accusation. Wendy Tynes, the reporter on the case, thinks she's made it big, until her case quickly is torn apart by the defense team, and Dan is found not guilty. Wendy is fired from her job, and when she witnesses Dan's murder, she finds herself determined to find out the truth. Call it intuition, call it a hunch, but something isn't adding up, and Wendy finds herself wondering if she just helped an innocent man get murdered.

      Twenty years worth of secrets begin to unravel as Wendy finds herself digging deeper not only into Dan's life and murder, but also into the murder of Haley McQuaid, a missing teen...that may or may not be linked to Dan Mercer.

      As always, Harlan doesn't disappoint...but then again, I may just be his Annie Wilkes. :)
    • 4/5
      Wow!! This one kept me guessing until the very end! Everytime I thought I knew the answer - I was wrong. Awesome twists and turns! Another great one by Harlan Coben.
    • 2/5
      I am a Harlan Cohen fan but this audio book really let me down. The narrator did not do males voices convincingly and that tripped me up when listening to the story and trying to understand what was going on. The male voices were annoying. The female voices were not much better.I liked the beginning of the story when Dan Mercer said that he knew before he did it that opening the red door would mean the ending of his life. But then the story switched to reporter named Wendy Tynes. Her goal was to bring down sexual predators of children. But I could not feel good about her or any of the other characters in this mystery. Also too many character were introduced at once in the opening of the book. I tried to take notes but the narrator went so fast that it was hard for me to keep up. There were some twists and turns to the story towards the middle but at the end, there were so many additional twists that I was confused and felt that the author had broken my trust with me!I am not giving up on Harlan Coben's books but I may not be buying any more audio books with his stories.
    • 5/5
      Like crack. Can't get enough of Harlan Coban's books.
    • 4/5
      Great plot, twists and turns. I didn't see that ending coming. Great ending.
    • 1/5
      The entire story circles around a missing girl and dead man. For some reason I could not get into this story. Too many characters??? I do not know. I love all the other Coben books I have read...he is one of my favorite authors. But this story didn't meet the standards of his others, in my opinion.
    • 3/5
      Caught, the new thriller by Harlen Coben, opens with a Dateline-type predator sting. Dan Mercer, a social worker who devotes his time to at risk kids, is responding to a call from one of them, a teen-age girl. She has asked for his help, asked him to come to her foster family's address. When he gets there--lights! camera! action!--a microphone is thrust into his face and a pushy, self-righteous reporter demands that he explain himself. Evidence placing him in teen chat rooms posing as a teen himself is found on the hard drive of his PC at home, kid porn is found hidden in his garage. He must be guilty. So why is Wendy Tynes, the reporter who helped to catch him, plagued with doubts? And what connection does his case have to another teen girl--this one an over-achieving product of a warm, nurturing home-- going missing? And why are three of Dan's suite-mates from Princeton all of a sudden finding themselves also framed for unsavory crimes?The chapters are short (although not James Patterson short) and the action moves at breakneck speed. Coincidence is definitely Harlen Coben's friend, but you know what? I don't care. This is a good, satisfying thriller, with likeable, fairly complex characters and a mildly surprising ending. Yes, it's candy, and it will be gone from your mind before you know it. But there are far worse ways to spend a few hours of escape time.
    • 5/5
      Good book. Lots of twists, Kept your attention. Ending a little unbelievable but it did wrap things up.
    • 4/5
      Very involved.The story had multiple stories on going at same time that connected with each other.Never dreamed that the killer that was being hunted would end up being who it was.Surprized.Enjoyeed this book.
    • 4/5
      3.75 starsDan is set up by a reporter who is out to catch a pedophile. The charges are later dropped, but Dan’s life is ruined. Meantime, a teenage girl has gone missing. Wendy, the reporter who set things up on Dan, thinks there is still something going on and won’t give up until she finds out what it is. It’s actually hard to summarize this one, as there are a few things going on. For the most part, though, as with most of Coben’s books, I was kept turning pages; I wanted to keep reading. As usual, there were plenty of twists and turns. Although I didn’t figure out any of the twists, for some reason (I have no idea why), I didn’t feel shocked at most of them. They were a surprise, but the twists didn’t blow me away, like they usually do. I’m just not sure why the end underwhelmed me.
    • 3/5
      A great mystery. Moves along at a great pace. tt's a crime mystery. From the Bolitar series, Win makes an appearance: "articulate". However, the main character is "Wendy" a single mom reporter who acts a bit like a crime detective. The plot has quite a few stories intertwining, which adds to the character quantity, making it a bit difficult to follow if taken in increments.
    • 4/5
      I love his writing & sense of humor! It was nice to see little cameos from Coben's other series on Myron Bolitar. The story is intense. I think I liked it so well because I've thought about the nature of American Justice & if those accused of especially henious crimes are really ever "innocent until proven guilty". How just the accusation can ruin a person's life. Coben handled it well, without settling for an easy answer to that moral question.
    • 5/5
      'Caught' was only my second Harlan Coban novel but I am sure it will not be my last. What appeared to commence as a story revolving around pedophiles turned into an enthralling mystery story with the usual twist.
    • 4/5
      Seventeen year old Haley McWaid is a good girl, captain of her suburban New Jersey lacrosse team, and was headed off to college next year with all the hopes and dreams. Her mother awakes one morning to find that Haley never came home the night before and three months quickly pass without word from the girl. Wendy Tynes is a reporter on a mission; to identify and bring down sexual predators via elaborate sting operations. Dan Mercer is a social worker known as a friend to troubled teens, but his story soon becomes more complicated than Wendy could have imagined. Princeton Univ, Sterns Suite #109 with Dan Mercer, Phil Turnball, Farley Parks, Kelvin Tilfer and Steven Miciano "as roommates."
    • 4/5
      "Caught" is a very good thriller in the typical Harlan Coben's 100-miles-per-hour style, that makes you turn the pages so fast that your hair will ruffle in the ensuing wind. I have read a couple of books by this author before, and I chose this one because it was another "stand alone" thriller, as opposed to the Miron Bolitar series, that I carefully avoided.
      Coben seems to have carved himself out a little niche which could be defined as "the fast-paced thriller where seemingly normal people are hiding dark and life-altering secrets".
      The good: a complex plot that pulls you into different and rather unpredictable directions, many references to current ("current" 4 years ago) social habits and events, from unemployed white collar guys to social networks to viral marketing.
      The not so good: like 90% of books belonging to the "fast-paced thriller" genre, it's pretty shallow. Well, of course, you can only have this speed in shallow waters. Also, just like in a Dan Brown or a Dean Koontz thriller, you obviously don't go around looking for particularly elegant writing. For example, one character is introduced as "flamboyant", which is a pretty uncommon word, and only two pages later he is again described as "flamboyant". Also, different characters seem to use the same expressions, like for example "Boo-friggin'- hoo", or the family-slang word "friggin" that I don't think is such a commonly used expression.
    • 3/5
      Teenage girl goes missing, media set-up of Ted a suspected pedophile. Secrets of all concerned cloud the waters. Lives are ruined. What could have been a standard plot is jazzed up with twists of psychology, interesting characters and a surprise ending.
    • 5/5
      You know what you're getting with a Harlan Coben novel. It's going to be fast moving, quite witty, and have lots of twists and turns. On the other hand, there's a samey-ness about all his novels, even the stand-alone ones, which resolve in similar - very very complicated - ways. It's been a while since I read one, but this took me by surprise, being a lot more rounded and more believable, and featuring multiple mysteries. The resolution - though it depended to a degree on the police missing things that ordinary folk can spot - was capable of being understood without multiple readings and a mind map. It's a book with a storm cloud of tears hovering over it - it really is a heart wrenching read at times with its cast of the bereaved, though this is well balanced with some well placed humour, mostly provided by the 'Fathers' Club' which features a would-be rapper. As noted, he "...looked like Jay-Z if Jay-J suddenly aged ten years and never worked out and was a pasty white guy trying to look like Jay-Z". Great line, and a great read.
    • 3/5
      Dan Mercer stands accused of being a sexual predator thanks to the ambush journalism of Wendy Tynes, a tabloid TV reporter, who must cope with her husband's death caused by a drunken driver as well as reckon with the possibility of Mercer's innocence. When Tynes finds a link between a father of one of Mercer's alleged victims and others felled by scandal, she could become a killer's next victim (summary from ISBN 052595158X).Interesting premise, but complicated plot and dissatisfying ending.
    • 5/5
      I read this for a group discussion and it had us all guessing right to the end. The characters are well developed and seem like true-to-life people. The plot is excellent with many twists and turns and the ending is very surprising. I'm looking forward to reading more of Coben's books in the near future.
    • 5/5
      Wendy's TV show is all about outing pedophiles. But when she outa Dan her gut feelings tell her she's made a mistake. Though the evidence convinces the police, the information she unearths leads her in another direction. The police meanwhile are busy searching for a teenage girl that disappears without a trace. And when Dan is supposedly killed by a vigilante father the case appear clear cut. But all is not as it seems of course.

      There is a varied cast of interesting characters introduced throughout the book and many seemingly disparate facts are unobtrusively introduced along the line and when things start to clarify everything comes together neatly. In hindsight the clues are there plain to see and the characters all ring true. My first Harlan Coben will certainly not be my last.
    • 3/5
      Caught. Harlan Coben. 2010. Wendy Tynes, a local news anchor has made a name for herself by using social media to catch sexual predators. She is shocked and surprised when Dan Mercer a local social worker and compassionate friend to trouble children is caught in her trap. She had met him before had believed he was sincere in his desire to help troubled children, but he had been caught, and she was proud that she caught him. However Dan is freed on a technicality and Wendy loses her job. When Dan’s name is tied to that of a teenage girl who’s disappeared, Wendy begins to investigate and matters go from bad to worse. Dead ends abound and good guys seem like bad guys and bad guys seem like good guys, maybe… Interspersed with the Dan Mercer story is Wendy’s struggle with raising a teenage son and dealing with her hatred against the woman who killed her husband. Lots of suspense and similar to the other Coben books that are not in the Myron Bolitar series. The Bolitar series is the best though. Thank you Betty Cork for introducing the series to me and Jim
    • 3/5
      Exactly the kind of improbable thriller Coben writes. A TV reporter thinks she’s caught a pedophile, but when the case against him unravels—and then she witnesses his execution in front of her eyes—she begins to suspect that something more complicated is at work. The solution involves his history as well as the disappearance of a teenaged girl from the same town. The plot requires the Internet to be at a very particular point in its evolution, when blog comments mattered a lot to grownups. The Cheetos of literature: goes down fast, not much nutritional value, fine when you really have a craving.
    • 4/5
      Harlan Coben is one of the few fiction writers I like, mainly because when he writes a mystery, he includes the human element, his books are part mystery, partly a commentary on human nature.In this book, like in many of his books, he shows how the things we do affect us for the rest of our lives. It is also interesting how he reveals thought processes, he weaves modern technology into the story and provides enough twists to keep me interested.More then a mystery, this is a story of how modern technology can be abused, and how revenge is ‘a dish best served cold’ for many people.
    • 2/5
      Caught opens with the life of Dan Mercer, social worker and all around good-guy, falling apart. Feeling what turns out to be a justified sense of unease Dan makes his way to an address at which one of the troubled children he counsels is waiting in apparent distress. When he gets there he is instead ambushed by a TV reporter who accuses him of being a paedophile who had gone to the house with the hope of having sex with an underage girl. Ugliness ensues. Concurrently in the same town the McWaid family are dealing with the disappearance of their teenage daughter Hayley. The seemingly happy young girl has been missing for three months and her family are barely coping with the uncertainty her disappearance has caused.

      Much of this story is told from the perspective of Wendy Tynes, the news reporter who ambushed Dan Mercer. I found her sanctimonious, hypocritical and obtuse. Did I mention sanctimonious? It was this holier-than-thou aspect of her personality that increasingly grated on my nerves as the book progressed. I should however separate the fact I did not like Wendy from the fact she is a well drawn, complex character. After all it is realistic that I wanted to run over her driving an SUV as I fantasize about doing that to people (and television reporters) in the real world too.

      Despite my homicidal feelings for Wendy the characters were the best thing about this book. There were several really credible and quite beautiful depictions of ordinary people in horrible situations. The parents and siblings of Hayley McWaid were all heart-wrenchingly believable. As were the Fathers’ Club: a group of middle-aged men including one of Dan Mercer’s old college roommates who Wendy tracks down with the aim of discovering more about Dan’s past. All of the men had become unemployed thanks to the economic downturn and their various ways of coping with being men unable to provide for their families in a world they believe only values them by their ability to do so was touchingly portrayed. I even managed to find Wendy’s teenage son and father-in-law quite endearing despite their association with the self-righteous Ms Tynes.

      Parts of the story were solidly plotted and more akin to traditional crime fiction than a thriller as layers of people’s pasts were unpicked to provide understanding and motivation for various happenings. For me though these portions were overshadowed by some clumsiness. Firstly I began to wonder if Coben had been paid by the Temperance Society (or some shady government body) to wedge the ‘alcohol is bad’ theme in wherever he could (and sometimes where he couldn’t). This was monotonous and a pretty big give away to one of the two major plot threads which meant I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop despite the several apparent endings to that storyline. The other jarring note for me was the inclusion of the use of social media as a plot device. At times this was well integrated but at others it felt overly awkward. I can’t say more without giving away spoilers but, for example, I simply did not believe the actions taken by Wendy’s employers to information they discovered via the blogosphere.

      I acknowledge this as a character defect of my own but when I love a particular character I can forgive minor flaws in a book and, conversely, when I develop a slow-burning hatred for someone my brain turns each tiny imperfection of the book into a major distraction. This is, I think, partly to blame for my reaction to Caught but I’ve never claimed to be entirely objective here. If you’d like another perspective on the novel do read the review at Petrona which is untainted by a reviewer’s rampant hatred for the encapsulation of everything that is wrong with the world in the form of Wendy Tynes (though being fair to myself I think I would have found the plot clumsy anyway). This is only the second Harlan Coben book I’ve read and as I really enjoyed the other one I’ll happily give the man another go and I’ll look for more books narrated by Christopher Evan Welch who was excellent (rating is 2.5)
    • 3/5
      many plots, many layers, maybe too much for a recorded book. the narrator was a good character but i had trouble keeping track of all the other characters- even the woman who killed her husband driving drunk. jeeesus
    • 4/5
      Wendy Tynes, a TV reporter who specializes in sting operations involving sexual predators, lures Dan Mercer into a camera and police laden trap. Mercer is thereafter accused not only of being a predator but also of taking a 17 year old girl's life. Mercer was a Princeton graduate, whose only close relationships in the world were with his college roommates and his ex-wife, Jenna; in short, he was a loner except when he was working with children.There are many plot twists and turns "Caught," as reporter Wendy has to follow her intuition on what is and is not truth.