Gone for Good - Softcover

Harlan Coben

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752849123 ISBN 13: 9780752849126

Publisher: Orion Paperbacks, 2003

Synopsis

On October 17, eleven years ago, Julie Miller was found brutally strangled in the basement of her house in the township of Livingston, New Jersey. On that day, Will's brother, Ken Klein, became the subject of an international manhunt accused of the crime. He has not been seen since. Will has tried to get on with his life in the intervening years. He has a beautiful new girlfriend, Sheila, and a job working with the homeless. But when his mother reveals, on her deathbed, that Ken is still alive, and shortly afterwards Sheila disappears, the cracks start to show in his landscape again. But it is only when he finds that Sheila herself is wanted for a savage double-murder that his life actually starts to fall apart...

About this title

Review

"The ugliest truth, in the end, was still better than the prettiest of lies." So says Will Klein, whose search for his missing and allegedly murderous brother, Ken, leaves him doubting the actions of everybody he's ever loved.

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

From the Inside Flap

Read by Dylan Baker
5 CDs, 5 hrs. 15 min.

Harlan Coben earned the raves of critics everywhere for his New York Times bestselling thriller, Tell No One, hailed as "pulse-pounding" (People), "compelling and original" (Los Angeles Times), and "a thriller of runaway tension" (Iris Johansen). Now, in a bold new novel, Coben continues to stake out new ground in suspense, unleashing a haunting tale of secrets and betrayal...and of one man's search for his missing brother that spirals into a breakneck hunt for a killer, a victim, and the truth.

As a boy, Will Klein had a hero: his older brother, Ken. Then, on a warm suburban night in the Kleins' affluent New Jersey neighborhood, a young woman--a girl Will had once loved--was found raped and murdered in her family's basement.

The prime suspect: Ken Klein. With the evidence against him overwhelming, Ken simply vanished, spending the next decade as the elusive subject of rumors, speculation, and an international manhunt. When his shattered family never heard from Ken again, they were sure he was gone for good.

Now eleven years have passed. And Will, who always believed in his brother's innocence, has found evidence that Ken is alive--even as he is struck by another act of betrayal. His girlfriend suddenly disappears, leaving behind compelling evidence that she was not the person Will thought she was. As two dark dramas unwind around him, Will is pulled into a violent mystery, haunted by signs that Ken is trying to contact him after all these years. Will can feel himself coming closer and closer to his brother . . . and to a terrible secret that someone will kill to keep buried. And as the lies begin to unravel, Will is uncovering startling truths about his lover, his brother, and even himself. He knows he must press his search all the way to the end. Because the most powerful revelations are yet to come....

Gone for Good is at once a powerhouse of suspense and a haunting tale of love--the love between brothers, between lovers, between family members. It is one of those rare thrillers that not only make the pulse pound, but stir the heart as well.

Edition details

• Publisher: Orion Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0752849123
• ISBN 13: 9780752849126
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400