Gone for Good: A Novel

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Eleven years ago, Ken fled his family's suburban New Jersey neighborhood after Will's ex-girlfriend, Julie Miller, was raped and strangled. The Kleins eventually convinced themselves that Ken perished on the lam. But as Will discovers, the facts are not so simple. On her deathbed, his mother tells him that Ken is still alive. Then Will's girlfriend and "soul mate" disappears too, only to have her fingerprints turn up at a New Mexico homicide scene. How are these tragedies connected? And what's their relationship to the recent appearance of a contract killer known as the Ghost? With help from an abused ex-hooker, a former white supremacist turned yoga guru, and Julie's younger sister, Will finds himself in a tightly twisted plot that turns on double identities and misplaced trust and that forces him to dig for the courage he was always sure he lacked.

Although the premise sounds much like that of Harlan Coben's last book, the acclaimed Tell No One, and the books' ingenuous protagonists are nearly interchangeable, Gone for Good quickly establishes its separate but equally suspenseful identity. This is a tale of manifold deceptions guaranteed to show its readers up as suckers, and to make them love every moment of the experience. --J. Kingston Pierce--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
"We never forget our first love. Mine ended up being murdered." Newcomers and fans alike will know they're deep in Coben country with the author's ninth book, in which a counselor of runaways with his own history of broken hearts and death finds himself caught in a web of lost identities, forgotten nemeses and smoldering grudges. Will Klein was a nice Jewish boy from a nice Jersey suburb until his ex-girlfriend was found strangled next door and his brother became an international fugitive. Eleven years later, as his mother succumbs to cancer, Will gets the deathbed confession that his brother, Ken, is alive; around the same time, his girlfriend, Sheila (herself a runaway with a "murky past"), disappears and a neighborhood psycho called the Ghost resurfaces. Will is yanked into an FBI investigation via his friend Squares (a yogi whose forehead tattoo carries multiple meanings), which jumbles up the aforementioned cast of characters with another mystery occurring in the Midwest. True to form, Coben keeps the plot twists coming fast and furious, and readers will give up trying to guess the outcome quite early on; yet the book's entertainment value lies less in its plot than its characters. From the New York streetwalker Raquel ("Many transvestites are beautiful. Raquel was not. He was black, six-six, and comfortably on the north side of three hundred pounds") to Belmont, Neb.'s Sheriff Bertha Farrow ("Murder scenes were bad, but for overall vomit-inducing, bone-crunching, head-splitting, blood-splattering grossness, it was hard to beat the metal-against-flesh effect of an old-fashioned automobile accident"), this title delivers.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Coben has written another winner, guaranteed to keep readers awake all night. On the day of his mother's funeral, Will Klein discovers a photograph proving that his brother, Ken, is alive. Eleven years earlier, a young woman who was dating Ken was found strangled, and Ken's blood was found at the murder scene. Will never heard from Ken after that night, and his family and the police assumed that he was dead. While Will is contemplating this stunning revelation, his girlfriend, Sheila, vanishes under mysterious circumstances. Will's efforts to solve the disappearances of Sheila and Ken open a terrifying Pandora's box. Complex and unpredictable, this is even better than Coben's last novel, Tell No One. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/02.] Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
Coben, best known for his popular series of seven mysteries starring Harvard-educated sports agent/private eye Myron Bolitar, branched out from Renaissance man Bolitar to a quite ordinary hero in Tell No One [BKL My 1 01]. He returns with another stand-alone thriller exploring what happens when fate taps an ordinary guy on the shoulder, forcing him to turn detective. The hero, Will Klein, the director of a New York City foundation for runaway teenagers, has lived for 11 years with the knowledge of a runaway in his own family. His older brother is "gone for good" (family shorthand for dead), after the brutal slaying of their neighbor's daughter. Even with all the evidence pointing to the older brother, the family cannot accept that their golden boy, a handsome, brilliant tennis champ, committed the murder. Propelling the action here is Will's discovery, just after his mother's funeral, of a photograph that proves his brother is still alive. Just as he's absorbing this shocking fact, Klein's girlfriend disappears after police charge her with murder. Coben delivers far more than an absorbing mystery here. Through Klein, the psychological suspense turns on the question of guilt, surely, but also on the transcendence of familial love and forgiveness. Watching Klein decide among dangerous alternatives, as the clockwork plot keeps picking up speed, is breathtaking. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
Praise for Harlan Coben's New York TimesBestseller

TELL NO ONE

?A compelling and original suspense thriller...intriguing...clever and unique.?
-Los Angeles Times

?A thriller of runaway tension...Masterful suspense and explosive twists of fate.?
-Iris Johansen

?In this pulse-pounding hunt, Harlan Cobenlayers secret upon secret, crisscrossing years and crime scenes...a beach-read so gripping it ought to come with a jumbo tube of sunscreen...bottom line: tell everyone.?
-People

?A terrific thriller.?
-Larry King

?Tell No One rocks the house. My head felt like a pretzel by the time i was done because i never, not once, saw where the book was going until Coben wanted me to. an exhilarating, bang-up, porsche turbo of a novel that you absolutely will not put down.?
-Dennis Lehane

?I forced myself to read slowly. I wanted to savor every clue, every detail, and I never wanted it to end. There are numerous aspects to the clincher ending, with surprises in store for the reader until the very last page.?
-USA Today

?This is suspense at its finest--gut-wrenching thrills and honest, heart-tugging emotion. A big book in every sense of the word, Tell No One speeds along at such a breakneck pace that we have to remind ourselves continually to slow down and savor the writing--and Coben's marvelous characters.?
-Jeffery Deaver



From the Hardcover edition. -- Review

Review
Praise for Harlan Coben's New York TimesBestseller

TELL NO ONE

“A compelling and original suspense thriller...intriguing...clever and unique.”
-Los Angeles Times

“A thriller of runaway tension...Masterful suspense and explosive twists of fate.”
-Iris Johansen

“In this pulse-pounding hunt, Harlan Cobenlayers secret upon secret, crisscrossing years and crime scenes...a beach-read so gripping it ought to come with a jumbo tube of sunscreen...bottom line: tell everyone.”
-People

“A terrific thriller.”
-Larry King

“Tell No One rocks the house. My head felt like a pretzel by the time i was done because i never, not once, saw where the book was going until Coben wanted me to. an exhilarating, bang-up, porsche turbo of a novel that you absolutely will not put down.”
-Dennis Lehane

“I forced myself to read slowly. I wanted to savor every clue, every detail, and I never wanted it to end. There are numerous aspects to the clincher ending, with surprises in store for the reader until the very last page.”
-USA Today

“This is suspense at its finest--gut-wrenching thrills and honest, heart-tugging emotion. A big book in every sense of the word, Tell No One speeds along at such a breakneck pace that we have to remind ourselves continually to slow down and savor the writing--and Coben's marvelous characters.”
-Jeffery Deaver
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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