Chapter 1.

The stranger didn't shatter Adam's world all at once.

That was what Adam Price would tell himself later, but that was a lie.

Adam somehow knew right away, right from the very first sentence that the life he had known

as a content suburban married father of two, was gone forever.

It was a simple sentence on the face of it, but there was something in the tone, something

knowing and even caring to let Adam know that nothing would ever be the same.

You didn't have to stay with her, the stranger said.

That's Harlan Coban, reading the beginning of his latest thriller, The Stranger.

I'm all about suspense trying to make you turn that next page.

I want you to start The Stranger at 11 o'clock at night, think, I'll read 10 or 15 minutes,

and the next thing, you know, it's four in the morning.

That's the kind of book I try to write.

And it's worked out pretty well for him.

The Stranger is my 27th book and I'm told worldwide I'm around 70 million books in print.

So presumably you know what you're doing.

So let me ask you this, any rules of thumb for optimal creation of suspense and surprise?

For me, I usually, you say always, but in one or two books I have, I know the ending.

I know that final twist and surprise.

So I compare it like if you're traveling someplace.

If I'm traveling from New Jersey to Los Angeles, I can go off

road. I mean, and I always do in the books.

...