Nobody's Fool by Harlan Coben

 

At the age of eighteen Sami Kierce fell in love with Anna while backpacking around Europe. Things ended dramatically when he woke in bed next to the blood-covered dead body of Anna. Twenty-two years later he's convinced Anna has just walked into his classroom.

Nobody's Fool by Harlan Coben is the second book in the Sami Kierce series but can easily be read as a standalone novel as the author quickly outlines all the relevant information.

The opening chapter is set twenty-two years ago when a young Sami Kierce is traveling Europe with friends in the summer before starting college. He is surprised and flattered when a beautiful woman ignores his much more athletic friends and shows interest in him. A whirlwind romance follows, with Sami and Anna spending all of their time together. After a drink and drug-fueled night Sami wakes to discover he's covered in blood and holding a knife. Anna's body is in the bed beside him.

If that opening isn't enough to grab your attention then what follows certainly will. Twenty-two years later Sami is an ex-NYPD detective, having been kicked off the force for causing a suspect to be badly injured. Kierce is making ends meet by working as an investigator for a lawyer and running an evening class on criminology. It is during one of the evening classes that a woman walks in, and then promptly leaves. Even with only a brief glance at the woman Sami is convinced it was Anna. After giving chase Sami is unable to catch up but it does lead him to a well-guarded property and the infamous Belmond family. In 1999 teenager Victoria Belmond disappeared, feared kidnapped. Nothing was heard of her until eleven years later when she suddenly reappeared with no memory of the past. Are Anna and Victoria the same person? If so, how is she alive when Sami woke next to her dead body?

You just know that when you open a novel by Harlan Coben you are in for a treat with all the twists and turns, twists that will completely blindside you and I couldn't believe how many are packed into the opening chapters of the book. Added to all of this is a gritty setting, lots of action, humour and zippy dialogue. I love the way in which the author also includes mentions of other books. The Lock-Horne Building, home to Win Lockwood, Myron Bolitar's best friend, gets a fleeting mention. There is also a reference to the serial killer who featured in Think Twice.

Trying to figure out what is happening, following the clues, nags at you as you read, it's like having an itch you just can't quite reach. The shocking revelation left me gasping, totally unexpected and so well planned. 

Nobody's Fool by Harlan Coben will be published on 27th March 2025 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Century for a review copy.

Author Details

Harlan Coben is a no. 1 New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's leading storytellers. His suspense novels are published in forty-six languages and have been number one bestsellers in more than a dozen countries, with eighty million books in print worldwide. His Myron Bolitar series has earned the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards, and several of his books have been developed into Netflix original series, including the no. 1 global hit Fool Me Once, The Stranger, The Innocent, Gone for Good, The Woods, Stay Close, and Hold Tight, as well as the Amazon Prime Video series adaptation of Shelter. He lives in New Jersey.