In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Book Summary and Reviews of Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben

Fool Me Once

by Harlan Coben

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Mar 2016, 400 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

#1 New York Times bestseller Harlan Coben delivers his next impossible-to-put-down thriller.

In the course of eight consecutive #1 New York Times bestsellers, millions of readers have discovered Harlan Coben's page-turning thrillers, filled with his trademark edge-of-your-seat suspense and gut-wrenching emotion. In Fool Me Once, Coben once again outdoes himself.

Former special ops pilot Maya, home from the war, sees an unthinkable image captured by her nanny cam while she is at work: her two-year-old daughter playing with Maya's husband, Joe - who had been brutally murdered two weeks earlier. The provocative question at the heart of the mystery: Can you believe everything you see with your own eyes, even when you desperately want to? To find the answer, Maya must finally come to terms with deep secrets and deceit in her own past before she can face the unbelievable truth about her husband - and herself.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Once again, Coben marries his two greatest strengths - masterfully paced plotting that leads to a climactic string of fireworks and the ability to root all the revelations in deeply felt emotions - in a tale guaranteed to fool even the craftiest readers a lot more than once ." - Kirkus

"Starred Review. Coben is like a skilled magician saving the best, most stunning trick for the very end." - Publishers Weekly

This information about Fool Me Once was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Kathleen bracy

Great stand alone novel. I loved it!
Another great book from Harlan Coben. A stand alone thriller. After serving abroad Maya returns to nightmares over what happened. Her sister is murdered. Then her husband is murdered. Her friend gives her a nanny-cam to check on her two year old daughter lily with the childminder. Checking the nanny-cam she sees her dead husband with their daughter. So is he still alive? Or is her mind playing tricks?

No spoilers but the action gallops along and is a great read.

FictionZeal

from FictionZeal.com re: Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben
How the heck? Maya Burkett was with her husband, Joe, in Central Park two weeks ago when two thugs killed him. She had her arms around him when he died. She had his blood all over her. So how is it possible that her nanny cam captured him holding their daughter while she was away at work? Her best friend, Eileen, had given her the nanny cam, which was disguised as a digital picture frame. It wasn’t because Eileen didn’t trust Isabella, the nanny, but because she felt when it comes to your child, you don’t trust anyone. Maya confronts Isabella about the appearance of Joe on the video. Isabella plays dumb. Then, she suddenly pepper sprays Maya, takes the memory card, and runs. Now Maya has nothing to support her claim that she saw the image of Joe holding their two-year-old daughter, Lily.

The police are still trying to find the killers, not only for her Joe’s death but also for her sister, Claire, four months before. Upset at not being kept in the loop, Maya sets out to investigate her husband’s death herself. NYPD Homicide Detective Kierce comes back with the most startling news … “The same gun that killed your husband also killed your sister.”

Coben’s twists and turns, right up to the end, are something akin to mountainous hairpin curves. You never know where it’s going. Dana Perino, co-host of The Five on FoxNews, had put in a plug for Fool Me Once after having met Mr. Coben. He’d told her he’d bet no one would guess the ending of this book. I’d say that’s a safe bet. In fact, I’d have to say Mr. Coben has managed to ‘fool me’ consistently as he’s a master at hiding the ‘who’ in the ‘whodunit’. Rating: 5 out of 5.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Harlan Coben Author Biography

Harlan Coben was born and raised in New Jersey.  After graduating from Amherst College as political science major, he worked in the travel industry. He now lives in New Jersey with his wife, Anne Armstrong-Coben MD, a pediatrician, and their four children.

Coben is the first author to win all three of the most coveted literary awards: the Edgar Award, Shamus Award and Anthony Award.  His books include the Myron Bolitar series, as well as other standalone novels, including Play Dead, Miracle Cure. Tell No One, Gone for Good, No Second Chance, Just One Look, The Innocent, The Wods, Hold Tight, and Caught. Harlan Coben's books have been published in more than twenty-two languages. 

Author Interview
Link to Harlan Coben's Website

Other books by Harlan Coben at BookBrowse
  • The Innocent jacket
  • Tell No One jacket

13 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...
  • Book Jacket
    The MANIAC
    by Benjamin Labatut
    The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut is an ambitious work that falls squarely into the category of fiction...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Libby Lost and Found
    by Stephanie Booth

    Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.

Who Said...

Life is the garment we continually alter, but which never seems to fit.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.