This book was another hit from the author. Filled with usual page turning mystery and suspense. I did find that his attempts at humor were not effective. Some twists and turns at the end were an added plus to the storyline. This is a book which I would recommend to all who enjoy a good mystery.

4-4.25 stars. A solid Coben thriller, but not quite 5-star level for me. For some reason, I just didn't feel totally invested/immersed in this one. But definitely a well built mystery where something from the past intersects with the present and surprised me in the end. I found myself missing some of the humor from the Bolitar series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for providing me with an advance reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

Expected publication date: March 25, 2025

Harlan Coben’s Nobody’s Fool is a riveting page-turner that artfully blends past and present in a gripping tale of mystery and redemption. Sami Kierce’s haunting journey from a shocking tragedy to an impossible reunion keeps you on edge as secrets unravel and danger looms.

Coben’s signature twists and relentless pacing shine, delivering a story packed with suspense, emotional depth, and jaw-dropping revelations. A must-read for thriller fans, Nobody’s Fool cements Coben’s reputation as a master of the genre. Unforgettable!

Harlan Coben is a must-read for me! I love his books and couldn’t wait for this one! It’s a Sami Kierce book, when someone from his past comes back and stirs up all kinds of issues. This was a fast read with lots of humor and a solid ending that I didn’t see coming!

Synopsis
In the year 2000, Sami Kierce, a young backpacker exploring Spain with his friends, wakes up one fateful morning to a shocking scene. He finds himself drenched in blood, a knife clutched in his hand, and beside him lies the lifeless body of a woman named Anna. Confused and terrified, he has no recollection of the events that led to this moment and begins to scream in horror. Fast forward 25 years, Kierce now resides in New York, where he is seen as a disgraced detective teaching evening classes. One day, he spots a face he thought he’d never see again—Anna. The resemblance is undeniable. But as soon as their eyes meet, she bolts. Kierce realizes he has no choice but to track her down and unravel the mystery that has tormented him for decades. His quest will force him to confront his past, revealing that some secrets are better left hidden.

My Thoughts
I have to admit, I didn’t realize this was the second book in the Detective Sami Kierce series before I decided to read it. Luckily, I checked and found out it could be enjoyed on its own, which was a relief. As for my take on Nobody's Fool, I thought it was pretty good! The beginning felt a bit slow, but things picked up as I got into it. The story weaves through two timelines, has a haunting backstory, and trust me, the ending has a major twist! I really liked how the characters developed, especially Sami, the main character. Overall, once it got going, the plot, and story really came together.

Thank You @Netgalley and @grandcentralpub for allowing me to review this ARC.

After a really rocky start, Harlan Coben weaves a gripping tale in Nobody's Fool. When I read Fool Me Once in 2016, I remember liking Detective Sami Kierce, but the character didn't stick with me the way some of Coben's supporting characters can (Hester Crimstein comes to mind).

The prologue of the book tugged at my heartstrings even as I wanted to slap Kierce or being so naïve. That said, the jump twenty years to the present was disorienting. Getting to know Kierce in the first two chapters was awkward and chaotic. He's clearly made a mess of his life, not just because of what happened to Anna all those years ago, but because of how his actions affected Maya Stern in Fool me Once. I didn't see admirable qualities until he thought about his wife, and, oddly enough, in a way he blackmailed a character.

Kierce makes his living these days teaching a pay-as-you-go course, which is the first place we see a little insight into his detective skills. The story really kicks off, though, when a woman from Kierce's past comes to his class, running off at top speed when he recognizes her.

She would not have known how to find him if another blast from the past hadn't made the newspapers. Because of Kierce's summary dismissal from the police, the man who murdered his financee from years ago is out. To make matters worse, the man wants Kierce to prove his innocence, even roping in his dying mother to help.

The cast of supporting characters is huge, which has advantages and disadvantages. Because there are so many, we don't get as much insight into their personalities and motivations as we might have with a smaller contingent. Still, they are drawn differently enough from each other that they keep things interesting. His students, which could have been painted as nothing but quirky losers, are often smart and capable. The wealthy Belmonds

Secrets abound, of course, this is a Coben thriller, but the way Kierce communicates with those closest to him is refreshing. Despite the mess he's made of his life, there are people around him that love and trust him. As the secrets are exposed, Kierce finally confronts what happened in Costa del Sol, an incident that changed his life forever, leaving him with choices he never thought he'd have to make.

Coben fans will enjoy callbacks to previous novels, though none are needed to enjoy this one once those rough first chapters are read.

Always a Harlan Coben fan! His books are never predictable, solve multiple mysteries at the same time, and continually entertain. Nobody’s Fool combines dual timelines, recriminations and unique solving with a classroom approach. Didn’t want this one to end but hopefully it is left open for a follow-up novel.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC.

𐙚 Dual Timelines
𐙚 Haunted Past
𐙚 Twisty Ending

Harlan Coben stays true to his style with Nobody’s Fool, the second book in the Detective Sami Kierce series. The novel is packed with twists, tension, and well-developed characters that keep the pages turning. Sami, a former cop-turned-teacher, becomes entangled in a dual mystery: a cold case from his youth in Spain and a fresh investigation aided by his quirky criminology students. Coben masterfully weaves humor, suspense, and family drama into the narrative. I appreciated the mix of mystery and human emotion that drove the story.

Rating: ✰✰✰.5/5

Thank you for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own. ・❥・

I am so glad that I stumbled upon Harlan Coben. I have enjoyed all of his books, including the latest, Nobody’s Fool are awesome!

Look, I'll always read Harlan Coben's newest book, and I'll always recommend him to anyone who asks for recommendations. With that said, I only liked Nobody's Fool. I didn't love it. It has the same exceptional character development I expect from Coben. There were the same tense moments with laugh-out-loud dialogue weaved throughout. In Nobody's Fool, I found myself perseverating on a major plot hole. I can't describe it without spoiling the ending but one of the plot lines wasn't logical to me or explained fully. Maybe I'm dense, but I went back and re-read and can't see the path to a major plot line. I still love Coben and I he will always be my first recommendation to friends!

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

First - thank you to NetGalley, Grand Central Publishing & Harlan Coben for the opportunity to read an e-ARC of Nobody’s Fool ahead of its March 25, 2025 release! (My birthday! Hehe)

Wow!! Wow!! To say I devoured this would be the understatement of the century! I finished this in just over 24hrs! This was my first Harlan Coben book and it certainly won’t be my last! As others have dubbed him, the king of thrillers - I’m here to say, that is a title absolutely well deserved!! Harlan keeps you engaged and QUESTIONING! I’m telling you, right up until the final chapter I was questioning everyone & asking “what the heck is going on?! What happened?!” doing mental gymnastics trying to piece it all together! It drove me nuts in a GOOD way! The story is engaging, witty & absolutely thrilling! The complete twist from what you’d ever expect is exactly how Harlan ties up this story! Absolutely blindsides you! And truthfully, you can’t ask for much more in a thriller. Coben’s writing style is engaging & easy to follow & I promise this story will keep you captivated. An absolute page turner! Do not miss out on this one! I cannot wait to read more work from him and have my mind blown AGAIN!

Wow this was good! I had to know what was happening next and the ending twist, whew, I need to know more so here’s to hoping for a sequel!
I also loved the main character, I was often laughing at his remarks.

5 stars!
Thanks NetGalley!

Harlan Coben has crafted yet another gripping thriller that is impossible to put down. As one of my favorite authors, he consistently delivers outstanding narratives. "Nobody’s Fool" is the second installment featuring Sami Kierce, a former police officer who has become a detective. The story is packed with action and unexpected twists as Kierce tackles two different cases, enlisting the help of an amateur sleuth class he is teaching. I found all the characters engaging and the pacing exhilarating. I eagerly await Coben’s next novel. This one certainly deserves a five-star rating!

Coben returns with another heart-pounding thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. This action-packed, twisty, and highly entertaining mystery showcases his signature humor while bringing back one of his unluckiest characters. Yes, I'm talking about Sami Kierce - born and raised in Jersey, of Pakistani heritage, fluent in Spanish, and a rule-bender in pursuit of justice.

We first met Sami in "Fool Me Once," which wasn't one of my favorite works by the author compared to his ten-starred series (give me a Myron Bolitar book and I'll disappear until I finish it - I cancel everything for Myron and Windsor). Thankfully, this time Coben brings out the big guns by introducing us to Sami's criminology class members: the Pink Panthers (imagine Golden Girls turned amateur detectives with perfect tracking skills), Gary the golfer, crime influencers (or as these wannabe podcasters call themselves, "Three Dead Shots"), the quick-witted Debbie the goddess (I wish she'd return in his next book), and Leisure Suit Lenny with his mysterious gadgets. If Amazon and Netflix decide to adapt this book into a series, these characters will surely steal the show!

Beyond the fast-pacing and intriguing writing style, the jaw-dropping ending will make you scream. You might even find yourself lighting a candle to pray that Coben writes a sequel soon, as the twist leaves readers with lingering questions.

Before diving deeper into why I enjoyed this book so much and why you should order your early copies, let me recap what makes Sami Kierce one of Coben's unluckiest characters. Sami lost his cop fiancée, who was brutally killed by her jealous ex-lover - a man who has been serving time for nearly two decades. His bad luck continued when he crossed paths with a powerful family who used their influence to ruin his career. Now disgraced from his position at NYPD, he deals with court cases, working for a law firm in exchange for his legal defense, without pay. Taking photos of cheating spouses has become his new occupation.

At least he found love with Molly and they have a baby son, Henry. He even landed a teaching job in criminology on the Lower East Side, training amateur sleuths. Looking on the bright side, maybe he isn't so unlucky.

But there's one crucial detail: twenty years ago, this poor guy took a trip to Spain with his wealthy college friends. There, at Costa Del Sol (the setting of Coben's previous work "Innocent" - highly recommend the Netflix adaptation, as Oriol Paulo and Harlan Coben created something special), he met a beautiful blonde in her early twenties named Anna. Their dreamy romance led to drug-induced encounters in her apartment. But one day, he woke up to find Anna covered in blood, with himself holding the bloody murder weapon. With help from their drug supplier, he fled the hotel room, raced to the police station to give his statement, but when officers questioned his involvement, he caught the first plane back to the States without looking back. This tragic incident derailed his entire life - he dropped out of medical school, drank himself into oblivion, and changed careers to become a cop to redeem his guilt.

Two decades later, he notices someone watching him from the back of his classroom. It's Anna - not a ghost, but an older version of herself. When Sami calls out her name, she flees. Did she survive? Has he been grieving for nothing?
As Sami tracks down this woman who might be Anna, he discovers she's connected to a powerful family, and his investigation could uncover another decades-old mystery. Meanwhile, his ex-fiancée's convicted killer is released from prison, claiming innocence and wanting to team up with Sami to find the real murderer. The timing of these two incidents seems suspicious. Could the cases be related? Did Sami put the wrong person behind bars? Can he uncover what really happened in Spain twenty years ago?

Overall, this is a fascinating thriller. While some parts are predictable, the final two twists hit hard enough to drop your jaw. My only criticism is the somewhat abrupt revelation of the perpetrator. Though unexpected, I would have appreciated more explanation. The revelation comes suddenly, followed by another shocking twist that leaves you asking, "What? Really?"

Despite this minor issue, I had a great time! This is excellent work! Buy this book! Cancel your appointments! Go in blind! Action-packed fun guaranteed!

Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for sharing this unputdownable mystery's digital reviewer copy in exchange for my honest thoughts

I may have screamed with joy to get approved for this book. Sami Kierce is back and this is told in two time lines present and Spain 2000. Sami is sill haunted by his time in Spain as it changed the course of his life. He believed Anna died in Spain.

Now, years late she shows up at his classroom. He chases after her and needs to figure out what happened all those years ago. This time he has his trusty students help with surveillance and background. There are so many different things going on and you wonder how it is all going to connect. One of the things I love about this author as he is a master story teller and not everything is what it seems.

This has plenty of family drama and mystery to keep you on the edge until the end.

Thank you Grand Central Publishing for gifted copy.

Sigh. Once again Coben slipped past my defenses. A very likable voice our protagonist has; I laughed out loud a couple times. And I can’t believe I didn’t see the solution to the mystery coming, but I didn’t. The prose remains merely workmanlike, but he has improved as a writer.

Nobody’s Fool tells the story of a college graduate on a European vacation with friends who meets a girl with dire consequences. Twenty years later, we find him as an ex police officer earning his living by sometimes working for an attorney and sometimes teaching classes to several different students. Along the way there is a plethora of action involving, among others, kidnapping, murders, drug and alcohol abuse and the release from prison of a wrongly accused (?) murderer. The reader can easily empathize with the main character and the writing is excellent and extremely descriptive—“…his hand is the approximate size and weight of a manhole cover” and “….looks at my car as though it just popped out of a dog’s backside” and “Has an ass that makes me want to open a proctology practice.” This novel is extremely entertaining reading and I highly recommend it to everyone who enjoys this genre and I thank NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this novel prior to publication.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for this Advanced Reader’s Copy of Nobody’s Fool by Harlan Coben due to be published Marh 25, 2025.

Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He runs and twenty-two years later Kierce thinks he sees Anna. He must find Anna and find out the truth. Was it her?
Loved this book – another great one from one of my favorite authors – Harlan Coben. It had everything you could want in a thriller and more. Just when I thought I had figured it out something else happened to throw me in a different direction. The best news is that is leaves it open for a sequel!

#NetGalley #HarlanCoben #GrandCentralPublishing #NobodysFool

Harlan Coben's Nobody's Fool is the second book in the Detective Sami Kierce series, but it can easily be enjoyed as a standalone. Coben's writing is engaging, and the characters are well-crafted and entertaining, especially the clever and determined Sami. The plot is intriguing, with a mystery that keeps you hooked until the very end. While the use of the term "GD" was a brief drawback, it's thankfully only used once. The ending leaves just enough open for the possibility of another installment, leaving readers eager for what's next.

Another excellent book by Coben

I have been reading some good books lately, including an audio book that I started the same day as this. But Coben's writing is so effortless to read that I never wanted to put this down. He is one of only a handful of authors (Stephen King is another) whose writing seems to flow like real life. No over-written or filler sections, just plain good writing. There were several passages in this book that I re-read because they were so insightful (and copied and pasted into a document of favorite book quotes), and one item (Balinese bed) that I had to look up. But for the most part, I read until I couldn't stay awake, slept for a few hours, got up and read for a few more hours, then finished the book by reading when I was moving around the house the next morning. When I absolutely had to put it down and switched to the audio book that I really had been enjoying, the quality of writing was so different that i actually felt sorry for myself that I wasn't able to be reading this.

This is the second installment of a series about Sami Kierce. The first was "Fool Me Once", which will be coming out on Netflix soon. I remember reading and loving the book, but quite frankly I don't remember Sami, I will definitely re-read FMO,

This is really Sami's story. Twenty or so years ago Sami and some college friends took a trip to Europe before he was scheduled to start med school. But Sami met a woman, Anna, and didn't want to leave their first Spanish stop, so his friends continued on without him. His life changed dramatically when he woke one morning in Anna's bed, holding a knife, and with Anna covered in blood next to him. Sami doesn't remember hurting Anna, nor does he have any reason to hurt her, but he is scared. Anna's friend came into the room and told him to run. He did, but to the police station. The police checked Anna's apartment and found nothing. Sami then headed back to the US on the advice of his father. But it haunted him for years. He wound up not going to med school, but instead became a police officer. When his over-eagerness caused the death of someone, he was kicked off the force and was now struggling to support his wife and new baby by teaching a night class that ties Sherlock Holmes advice and real detective's work.

One night a woman came into his class. He immediately recognized her as Anna, even though it has been over 20 years since they met, and they had spent less than a week together. Sami and his somewhat motley group of students try to figure out who Anna is. Is she the wealthy high school student who went missing a few years before that fateful trip to Spain?

The only thing in this book that I took exception to was that, while Sami and his wife were deeply in debt, they somehow had a passport for their year-old child. It wasn't a big part of the story, but seemed to be a little out of character.

I am already mad at myself for reading it so quickly, like when I eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's for lunch and then have none for dinner.