Gone for Good

Gone for Good

4.07 of 5 stars 4.07  ·  rating details  ·  14,796 ratings  ·  868 reviews
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 K...more
Mass Market Paperback, 417 pages
Published December 18th 2007 by Dell (first published 2002)
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D. Pow
Yes, I did it again. I am addicted. It's like crack. or the crack of an ass. I can feel the damage being done to my brain as I read page after implausible page and I wince at phrase after ham-handed phrase but still I keep going. As McDonalds is to one's arteries so is Coben to ones brain. What is the cranial equivalent of an oxygen tank and an electric wheel chair, and a long day spent drooling through the aisles at Wal-mart? That is what Coben is, what he does to me. God, I hate him. God, I ha...more
Sam
Feb 12, 2008 Sam rated it 5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Sam by: Dad
Coben is the King of the Plot Twist. Gone for Good is first of Harlan Coben's many novels that I have read and this one drew me is so much that I read it all in one day. Each chapter ends with a cliff hanger and that makes you want to keep reading. He also does a fantastic job of character development. If you enjoy a good mystery that will keep up on the edge and always guessing...I suggest Gone For Good.
Angie
Sep 08, 2007 Angie rated it 5 of 5 stars
Shelves: 2007
I just finished this book and I feel like I've gone on a hell of a roller coaster ride without even leaving home. WOW! This book was absolutely incredible! Every time I thought I had it figured out, Coben came up with another twist to make me question my theories or spin them into nothing but complete chaos. The man is absolutely genius when it comes to thinking up plot twists and turns to keeping the reader second-guessing.

If you like a book that will keep you guessing all the way to the very...more
Deirdre
Gone for Good is a usual mystery novel where one brother who assumes his elder brother is deceased learns just the opposite as event spiral into a net of truths that are laid out to catch the lies that were once told. Fact after fact, and turn after twist after turn, soon Will Klein learns what happened all those years ago when his brother was accused of murder and then disappeared.

Despite the number of pages in this novel. I finished it rather quickly. The story line was interesting and drew m...more
Ed
Generally, my motto is that life is too short to read airport fiction. But every once in a while... I picked up this book in a friends house and read just enough to commit to finishing it. I wish I could say I couldn't put it down, but like most airport fiction, not only was it easy to put down, but sometimes hard to pick up. Predictable plots are ok if the story is well written and the characters well developed. But sadly neither is true in this case. The writing is standard hackneyed airport f...more
Priyam Gopani
Just when you think that there can no longer be books which can really really keep you awake at nights, you stumble upon a masterpiece like Gone for Good. What amazingness!

Its primarily a story of two brothers. All Coben books start like that and then within no time, there are a series of characters introduced making it difficult to single out one main hero(or villain).

Will looks up to his elder brother Ken for everything..he looks up to Ken as his protector. Then one day, Ken is accused of rapi...more
Mikaela Olsson
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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I have read one of Harlan Coben's stand alone novels, albeit some time ago, and am slowly working my way through his back catalogue. In this book we meet Will Klein and I found that it didn't take long for me to like him. What also became apparent pretty quickly was that Will Klein is an ordinary bloke. He isn't somebody who can ruthlessly take down bad guys and he isn't a brooding lead character that has an issue with authority. In other words, a welcome change from the ordinary leading male co...more
Greg Bascom
GONE FOR GOOD is a fast paced thriller with at least 60 plot twists, turns or startling revelations (I catalogued them.) Typical of the genre, it is plot rather than character driven. Even the best characters are a bit shallow, and you will have to accept some improbable ones. Dialogue is written well. Otherwise, the writing is simple - if you got through third grade you won't need a dictionary - although after some stretches of short choppy sentences and dangling phrases you might wish for some...more
Linda
Gone for Good is one the most complicated crime stories I've read in quite a while. Its protagonist is Will Klein, whose older brother Ken vanished eleven years ago, on the night of the brutal murder of Will's former high school sweetheart. Everyone except his family assumes Ken is guilty, and Will has never been able to believe that his brother is probably dead. As the story opens, their mother has just died, and in her final hours, she revealed that Ken is indeed alive. The funeral is barely o...more
Angela
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 t...more
Tony
Harlan Coben- Gone for Good (Dell Books 2002) 5 Stars

Will Klein’s brother was accused of murdering Will’s ex-girlfriend and quickly disappeared. Everyone assumed he was never coming back, but now eleven years later events are unfolding that have them all revisiting the past. Danger seems to come along with every shocking revelation they discover. Can they figure things out before it is too late?

I really enjoyed this book. It twisted and turned so many times, you just never knew what to expect. T...more
M.
My parents live 5 hours away. I wanted to give audio books a shot. I work at a library. I thought these three facts would result in me being able to, I don't know, catch up on a classic or something that I'd be too bored to actually read but wouldn't mind listening to, whatever. Of course, there is only a CD player in my car, there is no tape deck. This severely limited my options.

I eventually decided on this because I thought it might be like a cheap thriller movie from the early 90s. I love c...more
Nicole
Apr 02, 2013 Nicole rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: People who enjoy a book where not everything is as it first seems, and love mysteries.
Recommended to Nicole by: My Uncle and my Mother
Shelves: mystery, suspense

When I first moved down to Florida, now almost a year ago in a few months, I had only one book in my entire household and it was a Harlan Coben book, Promise Me. I read it, and I don't remember much of the reading process, though I remember the end above every other part of it. I didn't feel like I got much of an impact from his previous book, but that might just be the cushion of time and grand old Life getting in the way again and erasing the past from my recollections. But I have a pile of bo...more
Brandon Thompson
This is my third Harlan Coben thriller. He definitely knows how to tell a fantastic story.

The key to reading his books is to make sure you absorb the details. Rest assured that every character has meaning. Every chapter, no matter how out of place or obscure it may seem, will come back to relevance.

This book is about a man named Will Klein who, after suffering the loss of his mother, learns that his brother may still be alive. Hell, he probably is. His brother had a troubled past. After 11 years...more
Michael Ward
Harlan Coben's new novel, "Gone for Good" is about a man named Will Klein who is incredibly unlucky in love. His first girlfriend, Julie, unceremoniously dumped him eleven years ago. Shortly thereafter, Julie was raped and murdered. The prime suspect is Will's brother, Ken, who may be dead, or else he may be a fugitive from justice. Time passes, and Will finally finds another woman whom he loves, named Sheila. One day, Sheila suddenly takes off, and Will has no idea why she left or where she wen...more
Paul
This was an absolutely amazing book.

I say that not because the writing style was phenomenal (it was merely decent), not because the characters were developed so wonderfully (I couldn't wholeheartedly warm up to any of the main characters like I could in other books), and not because it's bound to be a timeless classic (it'll probably just stay a simple mass-market paperback with at most a couple more reprints).

No, this was absolutely amazing simply because the twists and turns of the plot were...more
Aaron
This was my first experience with Harlan Coben and I don't think I'm clamoring to read another. I didn't hate this. It was good enough entertainment for a couple of days. But I can't recommend it.

Characters are one-dimensional. But they almost have to be. Revealing too much of each character wouldn't allow Harlan Coben to change what all the characters are and what they stand for and what they'r emotivated by in the last twenty pages. Seriously, this was one of those novels where a new revelatio...more
Michael
There were so many reversals in this complicated plot, I ended up just feeling numb instead of thrilled. Coben does well to get you invested with the hero, Will, an ordinary, good hearted guy who works in a youth shelter and lives with someone he loves. The shadow over him and his family is the disappearance of his brother Ken nearly a decade before in connection with the murder of Will's ex-girlfriend. Suddenly his current girlfriend splits and violent friends of his brother and the police come...more
Ann
I did not enjoy this book as much as I did Coben's others. Will Klein is our protagonist and we spend far too much time delving into details about his and his brother's pasts, details that could have been cleared up immediately if his main character had actually been paying attention in the first place. I did not have much sympathy for any of the characters really, except for Squares, Klein's partner in business. I figured out the who did what to whom early on in the book and Coben's ending is f...more
Linda Alexander
I've always found Harlan Coben's books to be fabulous, prompting me to want to keep turning the pages to see what would happen next long after I should have given up and called it a night.

Not so with 'Gone For Good'. I had a real struggle in continuing to read the first third of the book because it just seemed to drag on with so many different things being discussed that did not add to the story line at all. I seriously questioned whether/not to simply take it back to the library and find someth...more
David
Coben takes a good plot and suspense, but taints it with cardboard characters and too much suspension of belief. The humorous first person which I normally love seems to only work part of the time. Will, the protagonist seems to have only two traits: irrationally angry and hopelessly naive (you know, when another character is trying to explain a formulaic plot twist that you as the reader saw through five minutes earlier, but he just can't wrap his head around it.) The only interesting character...more
Barbara
Will Klein's brother vanished 11 years before the start of the story, accused of murdering a neighbor. The family assumes he is dead - that is preferable to believing he's guilty and on the lam. The book kicks off with the suggestion that Ken Klein is actually alive, innocent, and reclaimable - and tears off from there.

Short chapters keep the pace moving quickly; one mystery is woven into another, people are not who they appear to be, and real motives are surprising. The characters are complex a...more
Caren Rich
Gone for Good is a wonderful distraction and possibly a cure for depression. It is a one-night stand of a book- easy to read and happy to let go of and pass on. This book is for sheer entertainment "TMZ" value, not for deep interpretations of the soul or hidden meanings. Coben dispenses plot twists with a formulaic suspense.

The main character, Will Klein has a hero: his older brother, Ken. Ken Klein is suspected of raping and murdering a girl in a basement. With the evidence against him overwhe...more
Karin Coppernoll
I just had to see how this book would end. This book is told in the first person by the brother of a young man wanted for murder. Will's brother, Ken, allegedly raped and murdered Will's girlfriend 11 years ago and went missing. His family presumed him dead. Now, 11 years later, events transpire as Will learns his brother is alive. Will believes Ken is innocent and gets involved in hair-raising episodes. This book has many surprising twists and turns, and is a page turner. Some of the characters...more
Corey
I enjoyed my first Harlan Coben experience. It was exactly what I expected it to be and exactly what I felt like reading on a long airplane flight - fast-paced, CSI-style murder mystery with surprise plot twists and an unpredictable ending. Not surprisingly, the characters were pretty shallow, the first-person narrator was way too omniscient and the story was completely unrealistic (believability rating 3 out of 100). But that's absolutely fine. Now I know what all the hype was about and I choos...more
Sheila
Will Klein works for an organization who help the underpriviledged on the streets. His girlfriend Sheila, a volunteer with the organization has a secret past she has never wanted to share with Will. She disappears one morning. Will's older brother, Ken was accused of killing a young woman whom Ken was once in love with. Ken disappeared but Will's mother tells Will on her dying bed that Ken is still alive. The story tells the journey Will follows to discover the truth about Ken and his disappeara...more
Joe Stamber
Harlan Coben (in my experience) writes two kinds of book... there are those featuring Myron Bolitar, which are implausible tales of throwaway readability; and there are those in which something has happened in the past, certain assumptions were made, years later all manner of shennanigans occur which throws a different light on those assumptions; leading to all sorts of twists and turns and a conclusion where everything is turned on it's head. In Gone for Good, something has happened in the past...more
Jeff
Not my favorite of Coben's works. I already like the Myron Bolitar series better than his stand alones, but it seems like all of the individual books have the basic elements in common. Someone is shocked out of their normal life by revelations from their past, usually involving the death of a loved one. While there are very few "original" ideas in any media any more, it seems like Mr. Coben keeps recycling his ideas in his own books. Perhaps what worked in books like "The Woods" or "Tell No One"...more
Caroline
Well I have finally decided after years of dragging myself through books that I prayed would end, that if the lead character is a jack ass and the story puts me to sleep more than 3 times, I can quit with no guilt. So my friends, I quit. I found myself wishing that maybe it would be best if one of the bad guys would put this character out of his misery, but felt it was better just to move on to a more entertaining book. I have read many Coben novels so I should have known what to expect but actu...more
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The Mystery, Crim...: April/May 2012: Gone for Good by Harlan Coben 57 229 May 22, 2012 04:23am  
Gone For Good
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Gone for Good (Paperback)
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With over 50 million books in print worldwide, Harlan Coben’s last six consecutive novels, 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 first Young Adult novel SHELTER was just released in paperback, and the second in the Mickey Bolitar series, SECONDS AWAY, was released on September 18th....more
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