No sign of life

No Sign of Life - original Gone For Good - is a detective novel by US author Harlan Coben from 2002 .

General

After No Death Word , this book is the author's second stand-alone novel alongside Coben's Myron Bolitar series . Like No Death Word , the novel is alternately written in first person (from Will Klein's point of view) and in an omniscient perspective. Like all Coben novels, no sign of life has a complicated plot with many twists and turns that only become fully clear on the last pages.

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Chapters 1 - 5 (The starting point)

On the deathbed, the cancer-stricken mother of the first-person narrator Will Klein tells him that she now believes that his two-year-old brother, her first son Ken, is still alive. Will doesn't like to think of Ken; his association with him is an eyesore in his life, even prevents any professional advancement. No wonder, because eleven years ago the then 24-year-old Ken is said to have brutally raped and strangled a girl from the neighborhood, Julie Miller . Since then, according to the police, he has been on the run.
Will and his parents have a different theory: Ken also fell victim to Julie's real murderer and he is only accused of the crime; after all, Will saw a strange figure loitering near Julie's house while taking a walk. Will's sister Melissa doesn't want to know anything about anything and flees to Seattle with her husband Ralph . When Will hears his mother's words and finds a very recent photo of Ken on the same day, his image of Ken shakes because if he is actually still alive, he may in fact be a murderer on the run.
For a year, Will has been in a relationship with the stunning Sheila Rogers, a girl who only wants to live in the present and expressly forbids questions about her past, even if Will repeatedly investigates. Shortly after the death of Will's mother, Sheila suddenly disappears without a trace and leaves only one sentence: Love you always ( I will always love you ). And the FBI is on her trail, she's the prime suspect in a murder case in Albuquerque , New Mexico . Not only that: she has a criminal record and you know that she was once a prostitute.

Chapter 6 - 20

( Sheila Rogers: Past and Present )

In desperation, Will can't think of anything other than to call Sheila's parents in Idaho . Your mother is abrupt; she drops the name Carly, but does not want to elaborate on it. Together with his best friend, a man nicknamed "Squares" (literally: "Squares"), Will continues to sniff. They actually find a pimp who knows Sheila, even more: he hired her, deflowered her, made her addicted to drugs and "trained" her. So the FBI is right. Sheila came to New York City as a young runaway and became a prostitute when she was 16.
In Nebraska , the horribly damaged body of a young woman is found who was apparently tortured by severe beatings before she died. They quickly identify their fingerprints. It's Sheila Rogers. But if Will's statement was true, how could she get to Nebraska so quickly?

( Ken reappears )

To Will's surprise, Julie Miller's sister Katy contacts him. She is convinced to have seen Ken in the cemetery, he even spoke to her and said that he was innocent and determined to find the real murderer. Now Will is really upset, but things get worse when he is attacked in his apartment by an old friend of Ken. Psychopath John Asselta, known only as "ghost", chokes Will (strangulation is his specialty) and breaks his nose to show him that he has a message to convey to Ken: Ken should stop hiding, or the ghost would be his Taking out anger on Ken's family.

Chapters 21-32 (More Surprises About Sheila)

In the aftermath of a funeral service before Sheila's funeral, further completely unexpected news about the deceased come to light. From her grieving mother, Will not only learns that she has no tangible reason why her daughter ran away from home in the first place. But the real hit is that Will learns that Sheila has a daughter named Carly, whom he has never heard of. She was also given a new identity by a well-known paper forger and was also known as Donna White.
Katy Miller also drops a bomb when she learns that Sheila Rogers was Will's friend - after a brief investigation, her memories are confirmed: Sheila Rogers was her sister Julie's roommate at university. Will no longer knows where his head is. Why had Sheila never told him that she knew his murdered ex-girlfriend, and even shared a room with her?
With the help of a reporter named Yvonne Sterno, Will tries to research the murders in Albuquerque. Yvonne, who wrote the first and only article for a local paper, admits she was pulled from the story and the coverage stopped after day one. However, she learns that a family of three lived in the house where the murders took place - the description of the wife and daughter could well fit Sheila and Carly; the man, an Owen Enfield, is a stranger to all of them.

Chapters 33-35 (A Series of Murders)

Research by Will and Katy reveals that Sheila and Julie were indeed roommates; But their witness, an elderly, now retired lady named Rose Baker, who looked after the students and their children, makes a momentous remark to them that shows Will that the FBI lied to him or at least withheld important information from him: Yes Rose doesn't know anything about Sheila's death (otherwise she wouldn't have talked so badly about her, because she hardly leaves a good hair on her), but she does know about that of Laura Emerson, another student. She was also found strangled.
Three murders of three female students from the same university. Can it be a coincidence? Will confronts leading police officer Pistillo, who only says he just wants to protect Will. Will digs until he suddenly shoots back and questions Will's alibi about Julie's murder time. Why was he anywhere near the house at the time of the murder? The explanation that he wanted to go for a walk is far too flimsy for him. Does Will know more than he admits? Only to Katy does Will admits that he was jealous when he saw Ken go to Julie. So he followed him.

Chapters 36-38 (The Raid)

Katy is sleeping in an adjoining room with Will when the robbery happens. Somebody ties and gags Will in the middle of the night and attacks Katy. Despite his panic, Will is able to free himself and help Katy; he shoots several times at the attacker, who flees before Will can determine whether he has hit at all.
Despite Will's injuries, the police suspect him again - maybe he inflicted the injuries himself? Very threadbare, after all, Katy survived the gag attack - why should Will have called the police? Will expresses his strong suspicion that the ghost John Asselta is behind it, which worries the police very much, since he is known as a particularly merciless killer.
Will takes a lawyer: Hester Crimstein, who is well known to the reader from the Myron-Bolitar series and Kein Derbenswort. Since Katy herself claims that Will is innocent, it is easy for Crimstein to get Will released immediately.

Chapters 39-47 (witness protection)

The identity of Owen Enfield, the owner of the house in Albuquerque where the murders took place, is clarified to Will's amazement: surveillance cameras have captured him and Will himself can identify him: Owen Enfield is his brother Ken.
McGuane, a feared organized crime boss, uses the ghost John Asselta for the bloody side of his business; McGuane, Ken and John went to the same school together - Will and Julie also know or knew all three. When Will finally confides in his father and admits that Ken is still alive, he reveals that Ken was dragged into trouble with the police by McGuane.
But they are interrupted by the ghost itself, which surprises them on their walk and addresses Will's father with hate: it is thanks to him that he, John, was admitted to an institution many years ago after the self-defense murder of a student. Will knows about this momentous knife attack, but does not understand his father's role; he is also silent. But it becomes clear that there was a close relationship between John and Julie, who always seemed to see something positive in him and was the only one who visited him in the hospital at the time.
Now all of a sudden the information about Ken just tumbled in, both from Will's own research and from Officer Pistillo. It was Ken who once took Sheila under his wing and brought her out of prostitution. Much is explained when Will is told that Ken wanted to testify against McGuane and was therefore accepted into the witness protection program - under the name Owen Enfield. But then Julie Miller died and Ken fled to Sweden, where he was finally caught again and housed in Albuquerque. It is believed that he himself committed the murders in Albuquerque; they kept a low profile, otherwise the FBI would look very stupid: Ken was released to testify and committed two murders. What crime Ken was originally charged with is not revealed to Will, only that he worked for McGuane and the Ghost. Pistillo believes that the ghost caught Ken and Julie together and wanted to kill them both, but Ken escaped him.
What incriminates Will is the fact that Ken called Will twice from Albuquerque - since Will is unaware of these calls, he can only deduce that Sheila answered the calls. Will has a terrible suspicion: Was Sheila working for McGuane and was she put on Will because Ken would surely get in touch with him at some point?

Chapters 48-52 (Nora Spring)

Will, who thought nothing could shake him anymore, experienced the greatest surprise of his life when he went to Sheila's funeral and saw the open coffin. Without question, the dead woman is Sheila Rogers. Without question, this dead woman is not the woman he knew by the name of Sheila Rogers. That means: Everything you have learned so far about Sheila Rogers, from prostitution to the fateful fingerprints in Albuquerque, applies to the real Sheila Rogers - but who is the woman Will fell in love with?
Squares puts out his feelers for the pseudonym Donna White - and so it happens that Will tracks down "his" Sheila in a hotel. When she sees Will, she almost collapses and unpacks the truth: Her real name is Nora Spring; she is on the run from her cruel husband. Her panic even drove her from the USA to Europe - and in Stockholm she met a family of three who gave her a support: Ken, Sheila and their daughter Carly. Ken raved about his brother incessantly, so that Nora became very curious about him.
When Nora had to find out that her husband knew that she was in Sweden , she almost panic, but Sheila helped her out: Sheila and Nora exchanged their identities, so that Nora returned to the USA under Sheila's name and went to see Will because she was Wanted to get to know him through Ken's stories - whereupon she actually fell in love with him.
When Ken and his family were finally brought to Albuquerque and the double murder occurred there, Ken warned Sheila that the fingerprints of the real Sheila would undoubtedly lead to suspicion of Nora posing as Sheila - Nora fled. Nora knows that Ken committed the double homicide in Albuquerque to save his family; but she doesn't know what happened to Sheila and Carly. Will, however, still does not understand how Julie Miller fits into the picture.

Chapters 53-57 (Abduction and Meetings)

Katy and Will are ambushed and kidnapped by the ghost; Will is forced to use an internet forum to contact his brother and convince him to meet with him. However, Ken does not respond to this, so the ghost steps in and threatens Will's murder. Even now, Ken is not ready to show himself. When the mind is distracted from a phone call, Katy and Will manage to escape - however, the reader is revealed that this is not negligence of the mind ... He wanted it that way.
Surprisingly, the ghost deceives his client McGuane and ensures his arrest with video evidence, so that Will now seems to have his peace. He writes again to Ken, who this time agrees to a family reunion in a remote area. And indeed: Will, his sister Melissa and his father meet again after years with the long-lost Ken - it's pure joy of reunion.
And finally Will learns the whole story of Ken: Through her contact with Ken and eventually Sheila, Julie became a drug addict and involved in business with McGuane. On the day of her murder, Ken was with her to hand over important documents from the witness protection program when the ghost lay in wait for them and Ken barely escaped. He never said anything about his daughter Carly in order not to endanger her. Sheila died after the robbery in Albuquerque.
This is when Katy Miller steps out of the shadows with the gun pointed at Ken. She immediately throws everything Ken said upside down. She herself witnessed her sister's murder as a small child: it was Ken who killed her. His motive? Ken also strangled Laura Emerson because she wanted to expose his drug trafficking - he strangled her so that he could attach the murder to the known ghost. Julie, however, was very fond of John Asselta and did not want to accuse him of this crime, so Ken silenced her. The kidnapping of Katy and Will was a delusion: Katy had arranged this with the ghost to lure Ken out of hiding.
A scramble ensues, as a result of which Katy is disarmed; But Ken is finally overwhelmed by remorse and faces the police. His last wish is that Will and Nora take care of his daughter Carly, who is currently staying with Sheila's cousin.

Chapter 58 and Epilogue (Carly)

As usual with Coben, anyone who thought ten pages to the end that the surprises were enough will be taught otherwise. At the airport, as Nora and Will wait for Carly to arrive, Will suddenly sees the ghost in the crowd pulling him aside. But this time he's by no means an enemy: He has two more revelations for Will.
First he makes him understand why he hates Will's father so much: It was Ken who murdered the student with a knife at the time, but Will's father paid the good-for-nothing, whom John had to call a father, a bribe so that he could instead put his own son to the knife delivered and admitted to the institution.
But now he actually wants to do something good for Ken's brother ... because he still cares a lot about Julie Miller. He attributes two autopsy reports to a perplexed and initially incomprehensible Will, one from Sheila Rogers and one from Julie Miller. Conclusion: Sheila was never pregnant, Julie was - Carly is Julie's daughter; her roommate Sheila only took care of the child after Julie's death.
And simple mathematics leaves no doubt who the father is: Will himself.
The ghost slips Will another section of the newspaper and disappears into the crowd.
Only when Carly - who clearly reminds Will of his own mother - is there and they have come home with Nora, Will takes a look at this excerpt, which makes it clear that the ghost strangled a certain Cray Spring - Nora's brutal husband.

useful information

Coben connects his Myron-Bolitar series and No Death Word with No Life Sign through the appearance of the lawyer Hester Crimstein, who also appears in all of these works. However, apart from their occurrence, no cross-connections are established.

The German title No Lebenszeichen is intended to remind of the previous title No mortal word - but this is what the German translator does; in the original the titles have nothing in common.