Thank you to NetGalley, Harlan Coben, and Grand Central Publishing for the eARC! As expected from the master of fast-paced, action-packed thrillers, this book delivers nonstop suspense, unexpected twists, and compelling characters. From start to finish, it keeps you on edge, proving once again why Coben remains a standout in the genre. A must-read for thriller fans!

Another excellent Harlan book. This one is a bit different yet still very intriguing and interesting. A real quick read and a page turner. This author can’t do wrong.

Nobody’s Fool by Harlan Coben
Detective Sami Kierce series #2. Mystery, thriller, police procedural. Can be read as a stand-alone.
Former detective Sami Kierce is an unlicensed private investigator now. One evening as he’s teaching his night school class, there is a visitor at the back watching him. Though he hasn’t seen her in more than twenty years, he recognizes his girlfriend Anna. A woman that was dead the morning he woke up with a knife in his hand. She runs as soon as she realizes he recognizes her and Sami chases after her. He still has nightmares from those days and he needs to know what really happened.

🎧 I alternated between an ebook and audiobook. The performance by Vikas Adam is superb. The tension comes through clearly during the story as does his love for his wife. The mystery is easy to follow on the audio but there are a lot of characters to keep straight. Often an ebook is easier to go back and search for a name which is why I like to read both formats at the same time. There are some timeline changes via memories but those are easy to discern. I did listen to this between. 1.5 and 1.7 to more closely match my reading and conversation speed.

Twists and brutal subject topics.
Riveting and engrossing. Always a good storyteller.

I was gifted a copy of this from NetGalley and Hachette Audio.

I enjoyed this mystery and it kept me guessing until the very last page. I enjoyed the way that the main character Sami’s amateur “detective” class helped him solve the mystery and the backstory on several of the characters and how it all came together at the end. Lots of juicy family secrets !

I have been a fan or Harlan Coben for many years and enjoy his writing style. He takes an event and fills it with lots of twists, keeping you guessing during the unraveling of the story. As with most of his books, this story has some “interesting” characters along the way that you learn to love, or hate depending on their backstory along with some moments of levity.

The main character of this story is Sami Kierce, who is down on his luck and is trying to get his life back on track. He started his career as an NYPD detective and was fired from that job. After leaving the police force, he does some private investigative work and teaches a Detective Skills for Amateurs class with students from very different backgrounds. One night will teaching class, a woman walks by his classroom who he thought was killed twenty-two years ago in Spain. There is also another mystery he is trying to solve associated with the death of his fiancé.

As the story unfolds, be prepared for lots of twists and turns, the uncovering of secrets and deceit, and danger along the way. Sami is a very relatable character despite all his flaws. He has his fair share of personal struggles but is committed to the truth and deeply cares about his family and friends.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

#NobodysFool, #HarlanCoben, #NetGalley

Nobody's Fool is not my favorite Coben book as it is a little slower than usual and took me a while to get into it. Once I did, however, I became caught up in the spider web that is woven with the mysterious woman who has haunted the main character for decades as he believes he murdered her. Or rather, that she was murdered by someone else and he was the scape goat.
When she reappears he feels no choice but to follow the mysterious path.
Well written, this book tells a story that winds up to a surprise ending.
I recommend this book - and that means sticking with the slow start.,

Going along with his rich friends on a backpacking tour of Europe after college graduation, Sami Kierce meets a woman in Spain whom he falls for instantly and completely. Sami abandons his friends to stay and spend time with Anna. Until he wakes up one morning to find her next to him in bed. Dead. And he's covered in blood. Sami has no idea what happened.

After fleeing back to America, he discards his plans to go to medical school and becomes a cop. After being a police officer, he becomes a private investigator, teaching a class at night to crime buffs. It's twenty-two years after Anna's death and Sami is happily married with a new baby at home. One night a woman enters his class, exchanges a look with Sami, and then disappears. Sami knows it's Anna, the woman who died in Spain over twenty years ago. Determined to solve the mystery that has haunted him for years, Sami chases after her, only to find she's holed up in an exclusive and well-guarded estate. Can he get to the bottom of the story and events that so dramatically changed his life?

This is another mystery fans of prolific author Harlan Coben won't be able to put down.

This was my first Harlan Coben book, and even though it was the second in a series, it was absolutely phenomenal!
Sami Kierce, a former police detective, is doing whatever it takes to support his loving wife and young son. On top of his private investigation work, he also teaches night classes. But during one of his classes, Sami is stunned to see a woman he once loved while backpacking in Spain. Someone Sami believed was dead and he was the one responsible. Now, faced with the shocking reality that she is alive and well, he's determined to uncover the truth behind her survival, no matter the cost.
This book had such an intriguing premise and kept me hooked from start to finish. Just when I thought I had it figured out, I was proven completely wrong. I truly sympathized with Sami as he fought to do what was right, all while grappling with the difficult realization that doing the right thing isn’t always in everyone’s best interest.

*Thank you to Harlan Coben, Grand Central Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC copy. I am freely leaving my honest review.

Any time that I see a new release from Harlan Coben it is cause for celebration. I know that I will lose sleep until I have read the last page. Nobody’s Fool opens with Sami Kierce as a recent college graduate touring through Europe before entering medical school. Meeting Anna in a Spanish night club changes his life. After days of partying he wakes up next to her lifeless body with a bloody knife in his hand. When he reports the death to the police, the body is gone and there is no evidence of a crime. With his life turned upside down, he forgoes medical school and joins the police. Later disgraced and terminated for skirting the rules, he supports his wife Molly and infant son by conducting investigations for a law firm and teaching a night course in criminology. He is stunned one evening when Anna enters his class. Trailing her to an estate in Connecticut, he discovers that her real name is Victoria Belmont, an heiress who disappeared for eleven years and has no memory of the time. Sami is the only person with a connection to Victoria during her disappearance and is hired by the family to fill in that gap.

Sami may have started as a naive student, but now he is a seasoned investigator. He never told Molly his whole story about Spain, but there is love and mutual respect in their relationship and she trusts him. His class is filled with would-be investigators, so he makes this assignment a group project. It is an odd group that is eager to offer help. Coben throws constant twists and surprises at Sami. Beginning with Anna’s supposed death, there are threats against Sami and his family, scammers, human trafficking and murders. Coben will keep you glued to the pages until Sami finally discovers the truth and proves that he is nobody’s fool. I would like to thank NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for providing this book.

This is a gripping tale about a man haunted by a past incident. Back in his early twenties, during a romantic escapade in Spain, he woke up to find a dead girl beside him. Choosing to keep the incident a secret, his past comes rushing back when he unexpectedly spots the girl, very much alive, while teaching a night class. Recognizing her immediately reignites a complex web of emotions and mysteries.

Harlan Coben masterfully weaves together various storylines, creating a deeply engaging narrative. The characters are well-developed, and the plot twists are both surprising and satisfying. "Nobody's Fool" has proven to be one of the best books I've read in 2025, thanks to its creativity and the compelling way Coben stitches together the different elements of the story.

This one was just…..okay.

I actually contemplating dnfing a few times - mostly from boredom. I normally fly through Coben’s work but for this one I didn’t really find myself invested in the story, causing it to drag for me.

Overall I was underwhelmed, and when I got to the end I was satisfied with how it was tied up but also like wow, this is how I spent my time? Just felt disappointed by this one. Three stars because it was tidily written and wrapped up, and I’m sure there are fans who will eat it up. Just wasn’t for me.

Harlan Coben’s one-of-kind wit sets this thriller apart. Features his trademark twists and emotional resonance. Coben manages to remain relevant and each book is, in fact, better than the last. Love the band of misfit sleuths!

Harlan Coben knows how to reel in his readers in just the first few pages and keep them hooked until the very end. This is book #2 in this series but this one can be read as a standalone without missing a beat.

The story opens with a bang. Sami Kierce, a twenty-something college grad wakes up next to the bloodied body of his girlfriend. And the stunner? He’s holding a knife. Now it’s two decades later and this event from his past has come back to taunt him along with another tragedy. Needing answers to both events, Sami races to find the truth at all costs.

This heart-thumping, fast-paced thriller had me hooked until the very end. I have never been disappointed reading a Harlan Coben book and this time is no different. I would pick up any book he writes.

Thank you to NetGalley, Grand Central Publishing and Harlan Coben for an early digital copy and this exhilarating ride.

Harlan Coben knows how to write a twisty thriller! This is book #2 in his new Sami Kierce series. Sami was once a NYC police officer. He's now a disgraced NYC police officer, a private detective and a new father, doing whatever it takes to make ends meet and support his family. His bad judgement from 20+ years ago comes back to haunt him. He recognizes an old lover who he thought was dead and the chase is on to find out the truth. Just when you think Harlan Coben couldn't write anything better, he comes up with this one. You won't find out the truth until the end and I'm sure not going to tell it! I don't know how you do it, Harlan! Now I need to go back and read book #1. My thanks to Harlan Coben, Grand Central Publishing and Net Galley for the ARC and the highly enjoyable read.

It may be hard to believe, since I read so much, but Nobody’s Fool is only my second book by Harlan Coben. Given that he’s written SO many books, it truly surprised me. Anyway… Nobody’s Fool was a very engaging mystery and I’m glad I read/listened to it!

Sami Kierce is the main character, a former NYPD detective who was forced out of the department due to problematic behavior in a couple of cases. So he’s scrambling to make a living for himself, his wife and baby son, by taking on various low-level private investigations, such as surveilling cheating husbands. He also teaches a sort of adult education detective class on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. That class is filled with a wide variety of “interesting” people. I loved that Sami referred to them mostly by nicknames, such as Gary The Golfer, Leisure Suit Lenny, and a few women he calls the Pink Panthers. (It actually helped me remember who was who, as opposed to just a list of names.) I really enjoyed Sami; he has a good sense of humor and it was a nice change of pace to read a main character who grew up in New Jersey of Pakistani heritage.

The book opens with some scenes from 20-odd years earlier, when he was backpacking in Europe with some of his college buddies (whom he refers to as the “lax bros”, i.e. lacrosse players), before starting med school. In Spain he meets and has a brief affair with a young woman named Anna. The publisher’s blurb gives this away, so it isn’t a spoiler: he wakes up next to Anna, who is dead and he’s holding a bloody knife! He runs, basically. And he never goes to med school; instead he becomes a police officer.

Fast forward those 20-odd years and a woman shows up at his class and he just knows it’s Anna, older of course. When she turns and runs instead of talking to him, he follows her. Most of the book involves figuring out how Anna could still be alive. I enjoyed how some of his more promising students helped him in this effort. Another thread is the release from prison of a man he helped convict, a man he believes killed his then-fiancee. Because of his checkered past, his lawyer has gotten that guy out of prison.

I mostly listened to the audiobook version, beautifully narrated by Vikas Adam. I sped through this book, not wanting to stop listening.

If you enjoy a fast-paced thriller with some good twists and great local atmosphere, check out Nobody’s Fool.

Thank you to Hachette Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an advance copy of this audiobook and to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

If you are Nobody's Fool, pick up this pulse-pounding thriller where the jaw-dropping twists keep coming until the surprising conclusion.

Sami has had a string of bad luck beginning with a college vacation in Spain that went horribly wrong. Now, someone featured in his nightmares appears in his night class and just as abruptly vanishes. Meanwhile, a man he sent to jail sixteen years earlier for murdering his partner is released from jail due to Sami’s poor police work. Why are two mistakes from his past rising back to the surface now? Are they related? How will Sami protect his wife and their young son from these threats?

I loved Nobody's Fool. It had so many twists that were like a gut punch. The sizzling conclusion was a complete surprise but made the inexplicable actions of many of the characters so much clearer. I enjoy all of Mr. Coben’s thrillers but this book was one of his best. 5 stars and a favorite!

Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for providing me with an advanced review copy.

"Nobody's Fool" is a terrific read. In fact, too terrific: I meant it as a nighttime read, and it was so suspenseful that it got in the way of my work. I truly had trouble putting it down. After the fact, I thought that there were some elements that seemed implausible or not fully explained, but in propelled me along and drew me in, and I found the characters complex and persuasive. I've already been recommending it as a first-rate thriller.

🃏”Nobody’s Fool” - Harlan Coben 🃏

Genre: Thriller;Mystery
Setting: New York City, present day
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Detective Sami Kierce and his misfit criminology class set out to solve a cold case, when Sami spots a woman from his past that he presumed dead. As the mystery unravels, Sami and his friends find skeletons in closets all across the globe, uncovering much more than they excepted to.

I really enjoyed Coben’s writing. The characters were all well thought out and developed. I felt personally attached to both Victoria and Anna and I was desperate to find out what happened to them. The plot made sense and kept me guessing. There were lots of twists and turns that I did not see coming. I also enjoyed that the ending wrapped things up nicely and did not leave you guessing.

There was a lot about this novel that could have been flushed out - especially the quirky side characters. They could have their own spin off someday.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a thriller that will leave you on the edge of your seat wanting more.

📢 Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for this early copy in exchange for my honest review.

🏷️ #grandcentralpublishing #nobodysfool #harlancoben #arcreview #bookreview #bookstagram #thriller #readmorebooks #tbr #deathbytbr #mystery #netflix

Nobody’s Fool by Harlan Coben is a police procedural led by a man, Sami Kierce, who was no longer a policeman. He had been asked to leave because of behavior outside police procedures. He deserved it; he often did not think before he acted. He did a variety of things to keep his family safe, including teaching a class on sleuthing, to which he had a cadre of regulars. One night someone slipped in he didn’t recognize, until he did. He had known her twenty years earlier when he had been just out of college and on a trek across Europe. He had woken up one day to find her dead body next to him and a knife in his hand. In a panic he ran to the police. When he finally convinced one to return to the apartment with him, nothing was there. He called his father who advised him to get a flight out to the United States immediately. It didn’t matter where. Now, here she was. The sharing that night had been about surveillance devices and he had one in his hand which he stuck in her pocket as she rushed away. Where that led him is almost beyond belief.

Her family was rich; very rich. He was turned away, aggressively, by security, so was interested when his lawyer called him with an interesting proposal from them. He went, and the Arthur, the lawyer, was waiting for him. That started an investigation that lead in and around many things in his past. It involved his dead partner who had also been his fiancee; his wife and son; a kidnapping and return to the family eleven years later; as well as all kinds of other twists and turns. What a good book. It is the first Coben book I have read and I am asking myself, “Why?” Sami was an interesting character with a backstory and a current story, and stories in between. The plot was complex and well-thought-out. The assistance Sami received from a variety of people was heart-warming. And the conclusion and the after-conclusion where both things no one had seen coming. What a good book!

I was invited to read Nobody’s Fool by Grand Central Publishing. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #GrandCentralPublishing #HarlanCoben #NobodysFool

I'll never get tired of a book by Harlan Coben. We were introduced to Sami Kierce in a previous novel, but I don't feel like you had to have read that book to get into this one. A past traumatic experience comes back to Sami when he believes he recognizes a girl from his past. While teaching his class, she is spotted in the back, sneaking out after making eye contact with Sami. Sami begins exploring and investigating if this person is who he believes she is, even instilling the help of a group of his students. You will be surprised at where this story takes you. While it seems like it might be predictable, Harlan Coben always takes us the long way around to closure, with a surprise here and there, threading life and humanity into his writing and characters!