Former detective, Sami Kierce comes face to face with his oldest secret: the woman he believes he killed years ago while in Spain. Now, he has to find out who the mysterious Anna really was and if she is still really alive.

Coben is so good at crafting thrillers that keep my attention! Here's what I liked:

Sami: He is one of my favorite Coben characters. He's funny, incredibly sarcastic, but is also dedicated to the truth and those he loves. It's a mix that makes him not only likable but a character you root for even when he starts doing questionable things.

The side characters: This book is filled with some lovable and hilarious side characters. In particular, Kierce's students were amazing. I wanted even more scenes with them! They had such personality and really added another level to the whole book.

The narration: Vikas Adam does a great job with this one! His voice IS Sami for me.

All in all, this was a really good thriller!

Thank you to the author and publisher for the gifted audiobook!

does Harlan Coben create anything that isn't a complete masterpiece?? seriously this man is brilliant. i absolutely devoured this book. probably close to the top of my favorites from him after Tell No One. 5/5 stars!!! even better on audiobook too.

I have just finished the audiobook of Nobody’s Fool and loved it.

I have read it as a stand alone however it follows from a previous book. This did not impact the story whatsoever land the history from the previous was made relevant and I thoroughly enjoyed this continuation.

I felt the main character was very well written and I was drawn in by his history and dogged approach to solve the story which has haunted for so long.

The story left so many questions still to be answered but I loved this instalment and can’t wait for the next.

Harlan Coben has done it again with the return of Sami Kierce in Nobody’s Fool. This is a fast-paced thriller about two murders that deeply impacted Sami. On a college trip to Spain, he woke up next to the dead body of Anna, a girl that he’d recently met and was already falling for. Knife in hand, he remembered nothing and followed his father’s advice to get as far away from the tragedy as possible. Years later, his girlfriend Nicole was murdered…. and her alleged killer has just been released from prison. He’s claiming innocence but Sami is determined to prove otherwise.

Are both murders connected somehow? When a woman who looks just like Anna arrives at Sami’s true crime class and then disappears, he begins a search for the truth that leads him to the wealthy and potentially dangerous Belmont family. Instead of getting answers, more and more questions arise…

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this twisty sequel to Fool Me Once. Sami is one of my favorite characters - deeply flawed, often hilarious, and totally lovable. The narration was extraordinary and I felt all of the characters come to life in this compulsively readable - or listen-able! - new release by master storyteller Harlan Coben.

In typical Coben style, Nobody’s Fool is a gripping thriller packed with twists and misdirections to keep you guessing.

The writing was engaging and fast paced, and I blew through this book in no time. Coben twists together seemingly unrelated storyline’s to a satisfying conclusion. I loved the Sherlock Holmes references and the way Kierce’s class were to him the equivalent of Holmes’s street urchins. The cast of characters were rich and layered, and it was comforting to see the disgraced Kierce still had people minding his back.

The narration brought the diverse cast to life, infusing the story emotion and drama. The gravelly voice of Keirce had all the feel of an old school detective radio play, heightening the sense of suspense.

Thank you Hachette Audio for an advance copy of this book. Opinions expressed are my own.

I was overjoyed to be granted the audiobook edition of "Fool Me Once" by Harlan Coben through NetGalley.

However, it's been years since I read "Fool Me Once," so I really didn't remember the storyline. I've wanted to see the miniseries based on the book, so what I did was watch it before I started to listen to this book. Brilliant miniseries, by the way.

As for this book, it was captivating to listen to. Harlan Coben is one of my favorite authors, and his ability to write captivating, twisty stories is amazing. This one was no exception. I was hooked right from the start. It's not absolutely necessary to read the first book before you read this one, but it's not a bad thing either. As for me, I'm tempted to reread the first book, and I'm also hoping there will be more books starring Detective Sami Kierce.

“When you think about it, ‘Are You My Mother’ is our first experience with horror.” Omg that was my fav book as a child and explains a lot when you look at it this way.

“The first cut is indeed the deepest.”

Thanks to @grandcentralpub for my #gifted copy of this #audiobook I also bought a hard copy and will be meeting the author later this month.

It was a good one but I was exhausted by the twists and turns by the end. I did enjoy it but was like sheesh how much more twisty is this gonna get, my brain is in knots. 😂😂😂

This is the second book in the Detective Sami Kierce series and it looks like there’s a (10 year?) gap between when the 1st book and 2nd book were written. While I liked both books I’m not seeing the connection between 1 & 2. Helpppppp!

The MC in this one was very likable as was his wife. I also liked the MC’s student and how they helped him solve different aspects of the mysteries in this one. The twist isn’t what I had expected and I was totally invested in finding out what exactly happened to the missing girl.

I haven’t read Harlan Cobden before and found this to be a great introduction to his writing. Story moved along with insights into the characters. A major twist was unexpected but ultimately satisfying.

This was a fun story, and I really enjoyed the audiobook. The story explores secrets: everyone has them, but how far will they go to keep them. I loved how all the characters were never quite what they seemed, so you never knew who was telling you the whole truth. There was a diverse cast of characters. I've been a Harlan Coben fan for years and was so glad to get the chance to listen to this one.

The narrator of the audiobook was great and easy to listen to.

Thanks to NetGalley for this early copy of Harlan Coben’s , Nobody’s Fool
I have read lots of Coben’s early books and really enjoyed them but none of his more recent ones , so I wasn’t sure what to expect , this book was very entertaining .

The book starts over 20 years ago when Sami whilst travelling in Spain meets a girl Anna , he stays with her instead of travelling on with his friends and he and Anna have a wild few days until he wakes to find Anna lying next to him in a pool of blood .
In the present day Sami is an ex police officer teaching a criminology class when in walks a woman he thinks is Anna , not dead as he thought . This leads to Sami with the help of his students and ex partner in the police , trying to solve the mystery of what happened in Spain , who Anna really is .

This is a fast paced thrilling read with lots of twists and turns , the story and characters are interesting will be recommending this .

This was a fast-paced thriller with lots of twists and facets. The plot was interesting, the MMC was your typical macho detective (Pakistani, though not too much about that element), and tricky people are rife throughout. I'd have liked more involvement with the students because that was fun, but oh well. What I don't like is you're never given all the information until the end. Then there's this big reveal of all this investigating and results that the protagonist had that wasn't shared with the reader, so it's all dumped in the big ending on everyone and we're all left going, wow, I can't believe they pulled that off. So while it's not necessarily an unreliable narrator, it's a POV where we hear the protagonist's thoughts but not the bulk of the important ones. Annoying. I hate it when a mystery is investigated throughout the entire book, and then an info dump at the end is supposed to be impressive. It's the same as the bad guy giving a soliloquy at the end when he's caught and needs to tell everyone how he did it before the table is turned and he's caught. It's weak storytelling and a lame way to reveal what was happening the whole time.

Harlan Coben NEVER disappoints and this is no exception. Nobody does investigative thrillers/mysteries like he does. This was pleasantly twisty with surprises I didn't see coming. I loved Sami's little group of amateur detectives and that sidebar storyline. Harlan Coben is always a must read for me regardless, but I'd recommend this new one 100%. The narrator also did a great job with the audio.

Thank you Hachette Audio for my gifted ALC!

I am mostly new to the worlds of Harlan Coben. I’ve heard great things about his writing and his plot lines. Nobody’s Fool was on the nose, but the whole time, only thought about Eddie Flynn. I’m not sure who came first, Sami Kierce, or Eddie Flynn, but it definitely seems like Kierce is trying to fit the Flynn mold. Despite the comparison, this was a bingeable thriller that I enjoyed listening to.

This book will hook you from the start, take you on a twisty ride to the shocking end.
Already down on his luck, the past comes back to haunt Sami Kierce! Twenty plus years ago Sami was a recent college grad vacationing in Spain when he woke up next to a dead girl, covered in blood and holding a knife. Panicked, he runs. Present day, he’s a disgraced ex NYC detective working as a Private PI and teaching. One night, the girl he believed to be dead walks into his classroom, but as soon as he sees her, she runs. Sami is determined to track her down and find out what truly happened.
The narrator, Vikas Adam caught the snarky essence of Sami and set just the right pace for the drama.

I had originally requested this book, and it wasn’t until I went to Goodreads that I discovered this was the second book in the series. I reviewed the first book, Fool Me Once, and still hadn’t made up my mind on what I think about Coben’s writing. There was one of his book adapted into a mini-series, and I was so impressed by it, but I had some conflicted thoughts about the previous book in this series.

This book is vastly different from the first. I never truly felt a connection to Sami Kierce before this book, and found myself wondering if I had missed something upon discovering that he is a Pakistani-American, because if there were any clues as to his ethnicity, maybe I just didn’t notice them. But even the basics about his appearance remained a blank in my usually-vivid imagination.

I read this as an audiobook, narrated by Vikas Adam. The range of voices and tones that he was able to create believably is astounding. However, I didn’t like the way he narrated Kierce—the voice felt as though he was intentionally making it sound rougher than it was, and the speech came out as unnecessarily pressured to feel believable. It only happened when Adam voiced Kierce, and it made it hard for me to take his words seriously. I got ‘actor overplaying TV cop’ vibes from the narration.

Another thing that made it hard for me to connect with Kierce was his privileged upbringing. He attended prestigious schools and had his entire life mapped out for him, just like the other privileged guys that he was backpacking through Europe with after college. Upon returning from Europe, Kierce was set to start medical school and start working towards a prestigious career. And while he didn’t show the same degree of entitlement as his peers, when push comes to shove and he found himself waking up in a bed next to a body covered in blood, he is able to escape easily and avoid any legal consequences. However, there are other types of consequences, and Kierce has been walking around for quite some time with a heavy load of guilt. The events of that time altered the course of his life trajectory, as he continues to punish himself by sabotaging any chance of success he has.

The plot was another one that was so interesting, but didn’t translate well in action for me. Judging from the 4.37 star average rating on Goodreads, I’m in the minority. This is one of those times where the author’s writing just isn’t a good fit for me, and this is just my subjective opinion. I will say that I love how his writing translates to the big screen, and that maybe I’d like this more if I watched the show, in one of the very rare instances where I prefer the show or movie over the book. The only two other times I felt that way were with the writing of Tolkien and with the Dexter series, mainly because the books were too scary and the show wasn’t as scary.

While this wasn’t a standout read for me, it wasn’t a bad read either. I always feel bad saying this, but I think it has a lot more to do with my own personal preferences than the book or the writing itself. Overall, this was a fast-paced read packed full of twists and turns, even if I had my own issues with the story.

This might be a better fit if you:
Read this in print or ebook format.
Love the work of Harlan Coben.
Enjoy a fast-paced thriller.
Seek out series that are full of twists and turns, even if some of those veer into over-the-top territory.

I admittedly haven’t read a lot of Harlan Coben’s books, but I have seen his Netflix series and love them! So when I saw this audiobook available, I had to get ahold of it!

I normally am not into a police procedural type of book, but I figured why not? Boy am I glad I did. They tend to be repetitive and boring, but this was not the case. I had to know what happened to Anna/Victoria and how did it all connect with the murder to Nicole, Kierce’s fiancee? From start to finish I was hooked to this story.

That epilogue? Definitely not expecting that!

Lots of twists and turns in this one! Can’t wait to see the Netflix series!

Having watched and enjoyed TV shows based on this authors books I finally wanted to give his novels a try.

This is the second in a series but is easy enough to following without reading the first book.

Unfortunately I have decided this author probably isn't for me. I found the main characters a bit too egotistical and cold so didn't really care what happened to him.

The story had plenty of twists and turns and some of them were interesting and enthralling but overall I just found the plot a bit bland. There was too much going on which made it feel hard work to keep track of what was happening.

I can understand why people enjoy this author and his writing style as it's very defined but for me it just wasn't my kind of thing.

Thank You, NetGalley and the publishers for a chance to listen to this book.

I have read several Harlan Coben books and liked them a lot. But unfortunately this was a read that lacked the wow factor that would have made it feel like a Harlan Coben book. I don’t know, but it felt pretty ordinary to me—witty in places, but overall bland.

Still it is worth a one time read atleast.

This was my first Harlen Coben book, and I found it a decent, fast paced thriller, although let down a bit by the ending.

Unfortunately I listened to the audiobook and I really was not a fan of the narrator.

4.25 Stars 🌟

This is the second book in a series that introduced us to Sami Kierce, a former NYPD policeman who has washed out of the police department by making one too many mistakes. This book takes us back over 20 years to when Sami was a young teenager, celebrating his high school graduation with a back packing trip in Europe. Things happened on that trip that he thought were buried, but they come crashing back due to a chance sighting of a stranger he thought was dead.

That starts Sami down a crazy path, trying to bring back memories that he thought were long put away while the answers that he is finding are not quite making sense.

This was a very typical Coben book in the way that you are taken down a certain path, then in the middle of that path the story then veers off and doubles back in another direction to only stop near the end with a "TA-DA" moment that you were not expecting.

There are a couple of different storylines going on in this story and while they do not appear to be connected, you never know what to expect.

I listened to this ARC in audio format with the narration being done by Vikas Adam. While the narration wasn't awful, it wasn't my favorite. There are a couple of consistent narrators of Mr. Coben's books that I have come to really like (i.e. Scott Brick or Steven Weber), who do a much better job with important details like accents and different speaking styles matching the different characters. Like I said, he wasn't awful but.....

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Audio / Grand Central Publishing for the opportunity to read/listen to and review this ARC. The opinions above are mine and mine alone. This book will be out for publication on March 25, 2025.