The Stranger

The Stranger (2015) is a mystery novel by Harlan Corben. When a stranger approaches Adam Price and reveals a secret that his wife, Corinne, has been keeping, the course of his life changes forever. Adam confronts Corinne, but she disappears without a trace before he can get an explanation. Adam searches for answers about his wife, the stranger, and two brutal murders that connect in a web of deception. Adam’s quest explores the themes of The Destructive Power of Secrets, The Precarious Façade of Suburban Success, and Navigating the Role of Parent and Protector. The Stranger was adapted into a Netflix miniseries in 2020, with Richard Armitage starring as Adam.

This guide refers to the Dutton 2024 paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, death, illness, pregnancy loss, physical abuse, sexual harassment, suicidal ideation, racism, and substance use.

Plot Summary

As Adam Price waits to take his wife Corinne Price’s place during his son’s lacrosse team draft, a stranger approaches him and claims that Corinne faked her pregnancy and miscarriage two years prior and that his credit card statements will show the proof. Adam, unnerved, picks pointless fights with the arrogant head coach, Bob Baime, about which kids should be selected. The stranger’s words linger in Adam’s head as he meets his kids, Thomas and Ryan, at home. Before he allows himself to imagine the worst—that Corinne might have lied about their paternity too—he wants all the facts. To his dismay, Adam discovers an unusual charge for the website Fake-A-Pregnancy.com, a retailer of fake pregnancy tests, sonograms, and silicone bellies.

Adam tries to appear calm but fears that his perfect life in Cedarfield, New Jersey, is about to explode. Corinne comes home early from a teacher’s conference, and Adam hides his anxieties as they watch Thomas’s lacrosse game. When they’re finally alone, he confronts her. Corinne doesn’t deny faking the pregnancy, but she’s concerned about who told Adam. Corinne learned about Fake-A-Pregnancy.com from a woman, Suzanne Hope, whom she caught faking a pregnancy for the attention.

Corinne ignores Adam for the rest of the night, and in the morning, when Adam catches her on the phone, she asks him to wait until dinner, when she’ll explain everything. However, Corinne doesn’t show up to the restaurant. Instead, she sends Adam a cryptic text about needing time away. Adam stays up all night hoping for a response, and when he doesn’t find her at work, he worries that he’ll need to contact the police. He decides against it, as they’ll likely write him off completely because of her text.

Meanwhile, the stranger and his partner, Ingrid Prisby, approach a woman named Heidi Dann and reveal that her college-aged daughter, Kimberly, is using a “sugar baby” website to trade sexual favors for money. The pair demands $10,000 or else they’ll publicize Kimberly’s secret. Heidi confirms the details at home and calls Kimberly, who confesses to everything. In the morning, Detective John Kuntz, who claims that he’s from the New York Police Department (NYPD), visits Heidi to ask about the couple who approached her. Heidi has a bad feeling about the detective and tries to get him to leave, but he shoots her in the knee and forces her to talk. Kuntz kills Heidi when he finishes his interrogation.

Police Chief Johanna Griffins opens a homicide investigation into Heidi’s death. The stranger blackmails two more people in the meantime. The first is Michaela Siegal, whose fiancé leaked a sex tape of her and pinned it on her ex-boyfriend. The second is Dan Molino, whose teenaged son bought steroids off the dark web to better his high school football performance.

As Adam deals with Corinne’s disappearance, he works at his law office on an important domain case for Michael and Eunice Rinsky. Mayor Rick Gusherowski and a developer want to demolish the Rinskys’ home and surrounding buildings to build new apartments and shopping centers, but the Rinskys don’t want to give up the only house they’ve ever lived in. After butting heads with the mayor and rejecting bribes, Adam publicizes the Rinskys’ story and condemns the developers for trying to kick them out.

At the same time, Adam continues his search for Corinne’s possible hiding place. Thomas shows Adam a phone-tracking app that Corinne installed on all their phones, which shows that Corinne’s phone is near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While Adam monitors the app while waiting for Corinne’s phone to come online, he visits Suzanne Hope directly, hoping for more insight into Corinne’s motives for faking the pregnancy. Suzanne corroborates Corinne’s story and explains that a stranger blackmailed her and revealed her secret to her ex-husband. Adam realizes that they’ve been approached by the same stranger and that maybe Corinne refused to pay blackmail. The theory, however, doesn’t line up with Corinne’s surprise at being confronted.

A new facet of the mystery emerges when the Cedarfield police chief, along with lacrosse team board members Tripp Evans, Cal Gottesman, and Bob Baime, confront Adam at his house. They found large sums of money missing from the team’s account, and since Corinne is the treasurer, the evidence points to her. Adam learns the stranger’s license-plate number from the Legion Hall parking lot guard, and Rinsky—a retired policeman—runs the plates, which lead to a rental agreement under Ingrid Prisby. Adam searches through Corinne’s phone records and discovers that her last phone call was to Tripp.

Adam confronts Tripp. He claims that Corinne called him about the stolen money, asking for more time to repay it, but he refused. Adam looks further back into Corinne’s call history and finds that right before she faked her pregnancy, she called his former colleague Sally Perryman. Adam and Sally became obsessed with a case and spent all their time working together—often at Sally’s house—and Adam knows that their closeness must have scared Corinne.

The county police take over Heidi’s murder investigation, but Chief Johanna continues to investigate on her own. She tracks down Ingrid through a surveillance tape of her car. She discovers that Ingrid has also been murdered, and there’s evidence of torture.

After murdering both Heidi and Ingrid, John Kuntz visits his sick child in the hospital. Kuntz is a disgraced police officer who works as private security for a tech start-up, which promises him a $17 million payout from his stock options if nothing goes awry in the coming months. His boss, Larry Powers, was one of Kimberly’s clients, and his name may be released by the stranger. Larry pleads with Kuntz not to hurt anyone else, but Kuntz will do whatever is necessary to bury the secret and secure his money.

At the same time, Adam looks for more information about Ingrid through her Facebook account. He cross-references her friends with Fake-A-Pregnancy.com’s website host until he finds Gabrielle Dunbar. Gabrielle posted a group photo of Downing Place employees, and the stranger is among the crowd. Before Adam can reach out to Gabrielle, Johanna brings Adam in for questioning. Johanna suspects that Adam killed both Heidi and Ingrid, but after a heated interrogation, Adam urges her to investigate the stranger instead.

Adam visits Gabrielle, and though she denies knowing the stranger, Adam senses she’s lying. After Adam’s visit, Gabrielle quickly packs. She emails the stranger—whose name is Chris Taylor—and says that their group has been compromised. Gabrielle, Chris, Ingrid, and two others, Eduardo and Merton, are the core members of the blackmail group. Chris started the group because of his extreme hate for secrets, as he was lied to about his biological father for most of his life.

Johanna’s suspicions toward Adam dissipate, and the two join forces in their investigation. Adam reveals the whole story, and though he was initially furious about the fake pregnancy, he’s come to understand the desperation in Corinne’s actions. Johanna learns that the police found Corinne’s car in an airport hotel parking lot nearby, but this only confuses Adam more.

While Johanna visits Kimberly to uncover why the stranger approached Heidi, Adam follows Gabrielle to the blackmail group’s hideout in Pennsylvania. Unbeknownst to him, Kuntz is lying in wait for the group to gather. Gabrielle and Merton ambush Adam, knocking him unconscious and chaining him up in the basement. Chris and his group accuse Adam of killing Ingrid and threaten to shoot him if he doesn’t cooperate. Adam learns that the team was hired by an investigative firm to dig up dirt on Corinne, and they in turn learn that Heidi was also killed. Kuntz suddenly attacks, shooting Merton, Gabrielle, and Eduardo. Chris escapes, leaving Adam to fight Kuntz. The men tussle over Kuntz’s gun, with Adam trying to hold out until the distant police sirens arrive. With Thomas’s help, Johanna has tracked Adam’s phone and sent a unit of officers to his location. The police arrest Kuntz and eventually sentence him to life in prison.

Johanna drives Adam home. He secretly drives off to confront Bob, armed with Merton’s gun. Bob admits that he hired investigators to dig up dirt on Corinne because Tripp told him that she was planning to pin the theft on him. Adam confronts Tripp again at his office and sees for the first time the dire financial situation he’s in. Tripp confirms Adam’s theory that he stole the money from the lacrosse team and asked Corinne for more time to repay it, not the other way around. Tripp met with Corinne and shot her to keep her quiet, and he turned the lacrosse board against her. He sent Adam the text from Corinne’s phone to throw him off his trail, and then he discarded her phone in a mail truck.

Tripp takes Adam to the woods where he buried Corinne and unearths her body. Tripp delusionally thinks that Adam will rebury Corinne and keep his secret since he left enough evidence to implicate Adam if he ever goes to the police. Stunned at his loss and incredulous at the offer, Adam shoots Tripp. Johanna secretly followed Adam and overheard Tripp’s confession; she helps Adam make the scene look like self-defense. Six months later, Adam is fully exonerated, and he and the boys decide to stay in Cedarfield, where their mother’s memory is strongest.