Maya Stern was a firsthand witness to her husband’s brutal murder by a pair of thieves, so how is it possible that he would be seen days later, playing with her two-year-old daughter, on footage captured by a nanny cam? Finding the answer, and perhaps even her husband, propels the riveting narrative of Harlan Coben’s new thriller, Fool Me Once.
When the picture card inside the nanny cam goes missing, Maya has no evidence to back up what she saw, and anyone she tells is more than reluctant to believe her. But Maya, a former Army captain with plenty of command experience, isn’t one to just let things go. She naturally takes it upon herself to get to the truth, following a trail of clues past and present, uncovering new twists in the puzzle along the way.
Coben’s mastery as a first-class storyteller is evident from the opening pages as we meet Maya at her husband’s funeral, still dazed and overwhelmed by feelings of grief and loss. Readers can easily sympathize with Maya and embrace her as she reels from one tragedy to the incredible event of seeing her husband alive again on the nanny cam.
With readers hooked, Coben steers the narrative with a methodical slow build, as Maya retraces her husband’s past to a pair of previous deaths going back to his college days, while uncovering a slew of family secrets. Through Maya, readers are forced to ponder just how much you really know about someone and how far they’ll go to blind themselves to the truth.
Maya’s journey comes to an unexpected climax as Coben unravels a patented twist, making the methodical investigation of the book worth the wait.
Fool Me Once is the first of Coben’s 25 novels to be told entirely from the perspective of a female protagonist, resulting in a new experience for longtime fans and an excellent jumping-on point for new readers.
