Ever since James Patterson started to work with anybody who has a pulse and can type I’ve been allergic to thrillers with two authors. Such was my trepidation with Gone Before Goodbye by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben. Unlike other collaborative mysteries, Gone Before Goodbye is an excellent if complex read. CLICK TO BUY AT AMAZON
The main character is Maggie McCabe, a very gifted plastic surgeon whose license has been suspended and who is still grieving the death of her husband Marc in a field hospital in a conflict zone. Maggie talks daily to an AI Marc, a griefbot, that was created by her genius sister that is so realistic Maggie finds accepting Marc’s death even harder.
Maggie, Marc, and their missing friend Trace were the founders of World Cures which not only did good works but was also working on an artificial heart that also used human DNA to work. Maggie made a deal she can’t refuse to go to Russia to do work on an oligarch, Oleg Ragoravich, and his girlfriend Nadia. The mystery deepens when Nadia is wearing a tattoo only Marc could have had. It gets wild when, after the operation, Maggie is told by AI Marc to run for her life. She is rescued by a mysterious American and finds herself in Dubai where she sees the oligarch get murdered in the middle of a very exclusive club.
Maggie manages to leave Dubai but various complicated reasons lead her to believe the key to the mystery of what happened to Marc and his colleague Trace is in Bordeaux at a mysterious site. This is where Gone Before Goodbye gets particularly complex and requires some willing suspension of disbelief. Suffice to say Oleg Ragoravich was the money behind Maggie’s World Cure and also the money behind its invention. The latter is an important plot point.
The last two or three chapters of Gone Before Goodbye by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben feature quite a lot of plot twists and you better be focused on what is going on or you will miss a few. They are a bit much but not enough so spoil your enjoyment of this thriller.
Gone Before Goodbye
Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben
Grand Central Publishing 2025
340 pages
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