Gone for Good by Harlan Coben
First Published by Dell Publishing Company on January 1, 2002
Genre: Suspense, Mystery, Thriller
432 pages
Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Buy: Book Depository, Amazon
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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 brutally murdered in her family’s basement. The prime suspect: Ken Klein. With the evidence against him overwhelming, Ken simply vanished. And when his shattered family never heard from Ken again, they were sure he was gone for good.
Now eleven years have passed. Will has found proof that Ken is alive. And this is just the first in a series of stunning revelations as Will is forced to confront startling truths about his brother, and even himself. As a violent mystery unwinds around him, Will knows he must press his search all the way to the end. Because the most powerful surprises are yet to come.
Review
I vowed to go out from my comfort zone and try reading stories from other authors, thus agreeing on some review requests, but it’s different in the suspense/thriller/mystery genre. I started to love reading when I was in Elementary but it was only in College that I tried English books. And yes, the very first English book that I tried was a suspense/mystery/thriller from Mary Higgins Clark. After that, I tried reading book in that genre from different author but I ended up feeling disappointed. I read a two or three from that genre for the past years but I haven’t found an author that could level up or even reached half in MHClark’s level until I finished this book from Harlan Coben. I’ve been hearing his name constantly online and while at the bookstore, this book was on sale so I decided, why not?
I’ve read something before about a brother or a sister trying to clean up their sibling’s reputation so I didn’t have any high expectations for this book. For almost eleven years, Ken has been in a hiding for killing Will’s (younger brother) ex girlfriend, Julie Miller. Will believed that he’s dead all those years until the nightmare came back and confirmed that he’s alive. Now, he’s determined to find his brother and to know the truth and hopefully clear his name. I was pretty sure he was innocent too and the mystery on why Julie was killed is too agonizing to bear not knowing. Unfortunately it took me almost 3 days to finish this story, not because it was awfully bad but because I was quite busy last Saturday.
When I started this book, I already concluded that I’m going to have a good time. The writing style was ofcourse different from what I’m used to since the author is a guy. It was actually the second book in this genre that the author was a guy (the first one was aweful) that I tried but surprisingly, I love Coben’s writing style, it’s not too boyish for my taste and it’s not boring either. I thought at first that only female authors tend to talk alot and explains everything in their surroundings in perfect detail but Harlan kind of walked that path and this story, Gone for Good, has a lot of lines explaining and describing everything. Ofcourse that could be a big help in this genre because everything needs to be clear to the readers to help them figure out the culprit and unravel the mystery but I’m never really into that stuff since I’m a dialog reader, but surprisingly, I didn’t find it annoying. I actually read almost everything in this story and only skipped twice or thrice. Didn’t I just said I love the writing style? Hehe.
Another thing too is that the main character is a male. I’m used to a badass female lead when reading this genre so it was really exciting. For MHClark’s stories, she used to mention a lot of characters thus making it quite hard (especially for me who has no Sherlock Holmes talent) to pin point the real culprit. But for this story, there’s actually no need for me to guess because all were laid out as early as the first few chapters. The bad guys and the good guys were introduced very early in the story which kind of sends a not so pleasant sign to me. You see, with MHClark, she makes me feel cautious all throughout the story in the hopes of naming the culprit but since this story already laid it all out for me, there’s no challenge at all. I guess that’s also the reason why it was so easy for me to set this aside without any mental struggle last Saturday.
Even if the whole idea of the story is not something new in terms of concept, I have to say that every scene in this story was different from others. Not that challenging yes, but absolutely not cliché. It has its own share of suspense and thrill as well as mystery so your time reading this story wouldn’t be a waste. I thought everything was crystal clear until I came to the last chapter. My! It was so unexpected. Like huh? I don’t really want to elaborate because it’s going to destroy the whole story for you if you find out. All I can say is that, it was one of those perfect unexpected surprise. It was even a little heartwarming. Everything I thought was true isn’t exactly what it is. It’s just really unexpected and I am glad that everything turned out great especially for Will. All I can say about him is that he really was clueless and got played without him knowing it. But at least now he can finally have the happy ending he totally deserves.
For my rating, I am going to give Gone for Good a 3.5 star. It was really good but I think it’s not yet good enough for a four star. Besides, it was my first book from the author and there’s still a lot of opportunities to change that *wink.
If you're up for a little Sherlock Holmes adventure, then Gone for Good would be perfect.
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About Harlan Coben
With over 60 million books in print worldwide, Harlan Coben’s last seven consecutive novels, MISSING YOU, SIX YEARS, STAY CLOSE, LIVE WIRE, CAUGHT, LONG LOST and HOLD TIGHT all debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and lists around the world. His books are published in 43 languages around the globe.
Coben is the winner of the Edgar Award, Shamus Award and Anthony Award – the first author to win all three – and he has received an eclectic variety of honors from all over the world. His novel TELL NO ONE has been turned into a hit French film of the same name. His essays and columns have appeared in many top publications.
Harlan was born in Newark, New Jersey. He still lives in New Jersey with his wife, Anne Armstrong-Coben MD, a pediatrician, and their four children.
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