I didn't realize that Nobody's Fool was the second book in a series, however it touched on what happen in the previous book so I do not think I missed out on anything. This book started off pretty interesting, there was not a lot of action, but it made up for that with intrigue. Unfortunately about halfway through the book it really slowed down. I had to force myself to keep moving forward to finish the book. It did have an interesting twist at the end but did not make up for the boringness that was a large chunk of the book.

This was SO GOOD. I hope I don’t offend by saying my expectations were medium. I’ve been reading deep into Coben’s backlist and the most recent of his I read was from 1995. The 30-year jump in quality was stunning. He’s gotten nothing but better. I was in a book slump and this had me glued to my kindle late into the night.

I’d love for him to turn Sami Kierce and his criminology class into a series. Every member of the class was fantastic and I’m quite attached to Sami himself, along with Molly and Henry.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing.
A year after the events in "Fool Me Once", Sami Kierce is back. No longer a police officer, he is now a private investigator and teacher. One night during his class, Sami sees someone at the back of his class that he thought was dead.
Harlan Coben's ability to create characters that we love despite their flaws is one of my favorite parts of his novels. The plot moves along at a thrilling pace with sharp turns and twists.
A very well done flow up novel.

Former New York detective Sami Pierce's past comes back to haunt him. Forced to resign in disgrace, Sami is now doing some freelance investigative work for a law firm and teaching an evening class for want to be sleuths when one night the woman he had met in Spain after graduating college - who he thought was murdered while sleeping next to him walks into his classroom. Sami gives chase only to be blocked by a formidable estate and security in Connecticut. It turns out that she is the daughter of a wealthy family who had disappeared for 11 years only to turn up with no memory of what had happened to her during those years. Then the man jailed for killing Sami's young policewoman fiancé is released from jail due to a technicality and even stranger things start happening. To top it off, Sami has married to the love of his life and has a young baby and now they feel threatened. So how can this all work out? With the help of his student sleuths, his ex-partner and his legal employer, Sami goes on a crusade to answer all of these questions. In perfect Harlan Coben precision, we are led on a wild ride in this amazingly engrossing adventure. Kudos to the master once again. I loved every second of this book. Thank you to NetGalley, Harlen Coben and Grand Central Publishing for the opportunity to reach this Advance Reader Copy of a book I just could not put down.

Following his college graduation, Sami Kierce sets out on a European tour with his friends. When he meets Anna in Spain, he tells his friends that he intends to stay with her. When he wakes up one morning next to her body, and he's covered in blood and holding a knife with no memory of what happened, he flees back to the US at his father's urging.

Over 20 years later, Anna, or someone closely resembling her, shows up at a class he is teaching then mysteriously disappears. Sami, who was dishonorably dismissed from the police force for not following rules and causing a death, seeks to find her, learn the truth about what happened 20 years ago, and solve a famous kidnapping case from the same era. To add to the complexity of the drama, the murderer of his fiancée was recently released from prison, after 18 years, because of a technicality. Investigating all of these seemingly unrelated events brings Sami's wife and child into danger, and brings Sami to a crossroads of what is moral and what is legal.

I can't think of anything that I didn't enjoy about this book. It is witty, suspenseful, and at time heart-wrenching.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

What a great mystery read. This is a sequel but reads as a stand alone which is good since I hadn't read the first book. Sami Kierce is a very unlucky detective who was disgraced during his time with the NYPD and now works for a law firm. He also teaches a night class is detective work with an interesting group of, dare I say, misfits.

Sami is teaching one of his night classes when a women from his past walks in, he recognizes her as a woman he had a five day affair with in Spain twenty-five years prior. Only, Sami thought this "Anna" was dead and that he was responsible. He's also dealing with the man convicted of killing his fiancé years earlier is being released on a technicality. There's a lot going on and Sami gets some of his students to help out solving both story lines.

I really enjoyed this book, it flowed wonderfully and at times had Sami talking directly to us, his readers. Sami is an enjoyable character as are many of the secondary characters.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This is Harlan Coben at the top of his game. The plot, characters, twists, setting, atmosphere, all come together for a quick paced thriller that kept me hooked from start to finish.

Harlan Coban doesn't disappoint.

A former detective is shocked when a woman he'd known as a teenager and thought dead appears in his class for amateur sleuths. She disappears when she's recognized and, aided by his students, he is determined to find her and the mystery surrounding her.

Excellent!! 10/10. You can't really go wrong with anything from Harlan Coben but this was exceptionally good.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review!

I love Harlan Coben and have read all of his books, although the Myron Bolitar series is my favorite. He has never disappointed me, and he did not disappoint me with Nobody's Fool.

The main character may be familiar to some readers - disgraced former police officer Sami Kierce, who is incredibly likable, which makes this book a pleasure to read. We go back to Sami's college days when he was backtracking through Spain, connected with and hooked up with a beautiful girl, and woke up next to her one morning to find her dead.

Fast forward decades later and Sami finds who he thinks is the same woman in his everyday life. Even more intriguing, it appears that this woman is a missing heiress.

Sami uses the help of some of his students to investigate (and eventually solve) this case. This book is fast-paced, engrossing, and hard to put down. Yes, the ending is a little far-fetched, but it didn't bother me a bit.

I loved this book the way I love all of Harlan Coben's books. And I think you will too.

I can’t believe that despite this authors name recognition, I have never read any of their books. After reading this one I will definitely be reading more of his work. This is an amazing story, well written and engaging. The book started off slowly but picked up momentum toward the middle of the first third. After that it went full speed through to the end. The characters were dynamic and likable with some snarky and funny dialogue. The timing in the mystery was impeccable and I never saw the resolution coming.

I received an arc of this book and voluntarily provided a review.

This might be hard to believe given his massive popularity, but I have never read a Harlan Coben book before this one. However, I have seen all of the UK-set Netflix series based on his books, so I knew the plot of Fool Me Once and knew the character of Sami Kierce. He was a standout for me in that first story, so I enjoyed getting to know more about him in this sequel but also prequel since we see Sami as a young man. Events from that time help set in motion this new story.

I really liked the structure and how several plots were balanced throughout. I did not guess the outcomes but thought they were pretty clever. This is definitely a page turner, and I'm looking forward to the inevitable Netflix adaptation of this new book.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

Another fast-paced, creative Harlan Coben book that I couldn’t put down. How does one come up with these stories? Coben is the Steven King of crime drama, but his flair for humor and his fun writing style puts him over the top. While this book does not star my favorite character Myron Bollitar, Sports Agent, there is an equally funny and interesting protagonist and because of Coben’s writing, it is sometimes hard to not picture the tall, athletic Bollitar. And that takes nothing away from the story. Coben is such a great writer and his style is so unique and fun. I highly, highly recommend this as a fun read to make you forget about the real world.
Thank you NetGalley for an ARC.

This detective story is a thrilling ride from start to finish! The pace is relentless, and just when you think you've figured it all out, another twist leaves you reeling. At the heart of it all is a tense mystery-kidnapping, disappearances, and the lengths people will go to protect their loved ones. The stakes are high, and the emotional depth is palpable.
The story plays with social and wealth divides in ways that make every character's choice feel consequential. The dual timeline adds layers of suspense, gradually revealing clues that keep you guessing until the final page. It's a fast-paced, unpredictable, and deeply engaging story that leaves you questioning how far you'd go to protect the ones you love. If you're into tightly woven plots with shocking twists, this one will have you hooked.

I have been a fan of Harlan Coben books since my mom gave them to me to read in high school. If you love him, you will love this! If you haven’t read any by him before, just know you’re getting some real twisty plots, shocking moments and an overall feeling of unsettledness. At times, the writing felt a little forced but overall, I got sucked in and enjoyed the story!

Former police officer, Sami Kierce, who we met in Fool Me Once has had a rough year since the events of that book. Now disgraced and no longer on the force, he’s working PI side gigs and teaching a class called “No Shit, Sherlock” for an interesting group of characters in order to provide for his wife and young son. When a ghost from his past shows up, he gets drawn into investigating a decades old cold case along with having to confront his former fiancée’s killer, he and his misfit group and former partner go on a twisty and thrilling search for the truth in both cases. I could not put this down and flew through it. I found it to be fast paced and thoroughly enjoyable. As with most of his books, you have to suspend some belief and just go with the flow but his storyline here and that final twist was just so good. I would love to see more of his students in future books. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced ebook to review - this one publishes on March 25, 2025 and can be read as a standalone but you’ve got time to also read Fool Me Once and then see some familiar characters! 4.5⭐️

Thriller with interesting twists that kept me guessing until the end. Thank you Netgalley & Harlan Coben for the arc.

Disgraced NYPD detective Sami Kierce’s past comes back to haunt him when a strange woman enters his classroom. He just knows in an instant that she’s Anna, the woman he met in Spain 25 years ago. But how could that be since he killed her???

Another one hard to put down. Just when you think you have things figured out, Coben throws in another twist.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Awesome! This was fantastic! The story kept me constantly guessing and never wanting to put it down. Harlan is always such a dependable good read and this one does not disappoint. One of his best!

“Nobody’s Fool” is marketed as Sami Kierce #2, but it’s more a #2 to Coben’s Netflix series, then to the 2016 book “Fool Me Once.” In the first book, Kierce is a lesser character, the NYPD detective from Jersey investigating a murder (actually named Roger), but he’s not the main protagonist. He has a much bigger part in the episodic series produced by Coben (with a significantly larger backstory from that) and the Netflix Kierce is British of Southeast Asian descent. Here we’re back to an American character (of Pakistani parentage now — it takes awhile to flesh that out in this novel), but Kierce is a now disgraced NYPD cop, working as an investigator for a law firm with a baby genius junior partner named Arthur, and teaching criminology to pay-by-class students. Sami is happily married to Molly and has a one year son Henry, but we know that Sami’s previous cop fiancée Nicole was murdered, presumably by her ex, Tad Grayson. The book starts with a double nightmare for Sami: Nicole’s killer is being freed from prison on a technicality and simultaneously, the twenty-something girl he met on a drug fueled European post-college backpacking trek twenty years ago, Anna, who he also thought was murdered in Spain, shows up in his criminology class as a forty-ish observer who quickly flees.

This novel can be definitely read as a standalone. There are a few crossover characters from events in the first novel, but there are also slight references to a medical condition only shown in the series. Since continuity isn’t paramount, reading this without knowing anything else will still be a complicated, action-packed thriller, typical of a Coben book.

There’s a clever plot, lots of twists, and made-for-cable quirky characters — especially Kierce’s recruited investigators from his eager class: the Pink Panthers, Golfer Guy, the Three Dead Hots influencers, Lenny, Polly, and unhoused Raymond plus ex-partner Marty — all unique people who give Kierce an edge to offbeat surveillance/research as he gets further involved in both cases of the murdered women who he loved. I loved the story and I’m pretty sure there will be a Sami Kierce #3 to fill in more of his backstory. 5 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): Not quite: Sami can’t remember Anna’s eye color, but they turned out to be hazel.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO But Sami does make an observation: do any non-rich people have rooms called conservatories in their homes?

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!