Crime Fiction
FOOL ME ONCE
Harlan Coben
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Published: 2016
Pages: 405, Paperback
Harlan Coben is a popular name in the world of thriller writers, and rightly so. More than 70 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide and his works regularly appear on the New York Times bestseller list. His trademark edge-of-your-seat and often gut-wrenching suspense is what makes his books such page-turning thrillers. Every time he comes out with a new work of fiction, Coben sets the bar higher for himself, and in ‘Fool Me Once’, his 28th novel featuring Captain Maya Stern, a former army special-ops helicopter pilot, he once again outdoes himself.
Here Maya is seen grieving the loss of her husband, Joe, whom she witnessed being killed during a robbery and she’s struggling to keep it all together for their daughter, Lily. Then she sees footage of her ‘dead’ husband playing with their daughter on the nanny cam she has set up after Joe’s death. When she finds out that her husband’s ‘murder’ is connected to her sister’s brutal killing four years ago, she sets out to get to the bottom of the matter. The plot basically revolves around Maya trying to unravel this mystery, and unearthing other long-buried secrets in the process.
For avid readers of thrillers and crime fiction, this might seem like a simple enough plot but don’t be fooled. Or, as Coben said in a recent interview, one enjoys being fooled if it’s done correctly, and Coben, the master of precision in that matter, fools you so well into believing one thing to be true till he catches you completely off guard. It’s the ‘gasp’ moment, as Coben said in the same interview, that makes reading Fool Me Once such a bloodcurdling delight.
Critics have called Coben a skilled magician who saves the best, most stunning trick for the very end and Fool Me Once, like most of his other works, will have you under its spell. The magic in Coben’s writing lies in the fact that you never see the ending coming though but in hindsight it will be apparent that it was the only possible conclusion. The best part is that you needn’t have read other titles in the series to enjoy Fool Me Once.
