Gone Before Goodbye by Harlan Coben & Reese Witherspoon

Maggie McCabe is teetering on the brink. A highly skilled and renowned Army combat surgeon, she has always lived life at the edge, where she could make the most impact. And it was all going to plan ... until it wasn’t.

Upside down after a devastating series of tragedies leads to her medical license being revoked, Maggie has lost her purpose, but not her nerve or her passion. At her lowest point, she is thrown a lifeline by a former colleague, an elite plastic surgeon whose anonymous clientele demand the best care money can buy, as well as absolute discretion.

Halfway across the globe, sequestered in the lap of luxury and cutting-edge technology, one of the world’s most mysterious men requires unconventional medical assistance. Desperate, and one of the few surgeons in the world skilled enough to take this job, Maggie enters his realm of unspeakable opulence and fulfills her end of the agreement. But when the patient suddenly disappears while still under her care, Maggie must become a fugitive herself—or she will be the next one who is ... Gone Before Goodbye

Hardcover, 340 pages

Published October 14, 2025

 by Grand Central Publishing

3.25/5 stars

Harlan Coben is one of my favourite thriller writers, so I was curious to see what would happen when he teamed up with Reese Witherspoon for her first adult novel. Celebrity collaborations can go either way, so I went in with an open mind.

Maggie McCabe used to save lives on the battlefield, but these days her own life is in pieces. She’s lost her husband, her medical licence and just about everything else that mattered to her. So when she’s offered a large sum of money to quietly provide medical care for the very wealthy, it’s hard to say no. Of course, this is a Coben book, so that job turns out to be far more dangerous than it first appears.

I’ll be honest: I almost didn’t make it past the opening. The prologue and first chapter didn’t grab me, I came close to setting it aside. I’m glad I didn’t, because once the story got going, it became much more interesting. It was fast paced and twisty with lots going on. Unfortunately, the ending lost me again. There was so much happening, with so many threads coming together at once, that it got too busy and, at times, downright confusing.

This isn't one of my favourite Coben’s books, but still entertaining.

This book was part of my 2026 Reading Off My Shelf Challenge - #46