You suffer one terrible tragedy like the untimely death of your sister and you figure, or at least hope, that that's your share of hard luck for a lifetime.

	"THE WOODS" By Harlan Coben Dutton ($26.95)

His sister was one of four teens killed at a summer camp, and Copeland legitimately felt some guilt at their fate. He and his girlfriend heard their screams while they made love in the same woods but did nothing.

His devastated mother took the money from a legal settlement with the camp owner and ran away, abandoning him. Copeland grew up, finished law school, married happily and had a child, but the joy was short-lived: His wife soon died.

Fortunately, he has his 6-year-old daughter, Cara, and a good job as the district attorney of Essex County, N.J.

But big cracks threaten to destroy Copeland's carefully controlled life before he finds a way to patch them in this complicated but well-crafted novel.

The twists and turns begin when Copeland is called to the morgue to identify a shooting victim who had newspaper clips about him and the teens' killings in his possession.

It doesn't seem possible, but Copeland knows the scar on the victim's arm all too well. The body is that of Gil Perez, one of the four slain teens and one of two -- Copeland's sister was the other -- whose bodies were never found.

Perez's parents subsequently deny the identity of the dead man, but Copeland is sure they are lying. Eventually Perez's sister "hypothetically" acknowledges that Gil survived and suggests that means Copeland's sister did, too.

Only one problem: Soon after that revelation a female skeleton is found in a shallow grave near the site of the murders. If that's not Camille Copeland, who is it?

And so it goes for another 96 pages while Copeland, who has been reunited with his camp girlfriend Lucy while digging into his past, finds an answer that provides both joy and grief.

In between, Copeland continues to prosecute a case straight out of the headlines. The defendants are two rich, white fraternity brothers charged with raping a black stripper.

The father of one of the boys threatens to go after Copeland if he doesn't settle the case out of trial. Copeland refuses, and the father keeps his word.

Every prosecutor wins some and loses some over the course of a career. Copeland does both -- in the case and in his personal life.

The book, however, is all win for the reader. Take it onto the stationary bike or the bus and you'll soon forget the burning muscles or noisy cell phone conversations.

But don't read too fast; it's easy to miss a crucial fact in Coben's swiftly flowing style. I had to reread the denouement to get it all straight.