I sat with Harlan Coben once while he ate lunch at Bobby Flay’s Burger Palace in the Mohegan Sun Casino. It was probably disconcerting for the poor fellow. I kept staring as he lifted his sandwich to his mouth, bit, chewed and swallowed.

It must have seemed rude, but it’s HARLAN FREAKIN’ COBEN — and anyone who’s read any of his numerous thrillers knows that nothing is ever as it seems.

Would he pull a dill pickle disc out of his ear?

Shoot mustard from his nose?

Offer me a French fry — only to have it turn into an onion ring before my very eyes?

Well, imagine how poor Adam Price feels in “The Stranger.” A successful and happy suburban attorney with a sweetheart spouse and two great kids, Price is thrust into a horrific, dizzying funhouse.

Adam can’t ask his wife for help because she’s vanished after he discovers a years’ old and cruel duplicity. But where is she and did she leave of her own free will?

The spins and surprises never stop — and Coben snares you from the very first sentence.