Harlan Coben always
provides a good read and “Nobody’s Fool” is no exception. (Review by Keith
Millar)
Harlan Coben is without doubt one of the world’s finest thriller/mystery writers in the world today. He has written 36 best-sellers and this besides his Myron Bolitar series and a variety of books for younger readers.
He has something like 85 million books in print and 11 of his stories are currently available as series on Netflix.
So, with a pedigree like this, can his latest book, Nobody’s Fool be anything but excellent? Well – it certainly isn’t. It has all the Coben mystery, intrigue twists and turns and readability one has come to expect from this author.
It is a stand-alone story, but at least as far as the main protagonist in concerned there are elements of it being a sequel. This can cause some confusion as incidents are referred to that the reader may have no idea what is going on. In the end, though, this does not in any way distract from the story in any way.
Sami Keirce first made a brief appearance as a policeman in Coben’s book Fool Me Once. The character is then expanded, and he becomes an important player in the TV Series based on this book. And now he becomes the major player with his own story told in Nobody’s Fool.
Sami Kierce embarks on a back-packing trip to Spain after college. While there, he meets a beautiful young girl named Anna and a romance develops. Then one morning he wakes up with Anna dead in the bed next to him and a bloody knife in his hand.
He runs for home and hears no more of the incident.
But it is a burden he carries, and it does impact on his life. He gives up on plans to go to medical school and joins the police instead. But he is eventually dismissed over his overzealous investigation of an incident during which his partner and fiancé is killed.
When we find him 22 years later, he is a private investigator of sorts and teaches wannabe sleuths at a night school to make a paltry income to support a wife and child.
One night he recognises a familiar face at the back of his classroom. He is convinced it is Anna from Spain. He chases after her, but she gets away.
Kierce has no choice but to investigate who this woman is and solve the mystery that has haunted him his entire life. It is this investigation that takes the reader on an exciting and highly charged roller coaster ride to an unexpected ending.
Harlan Coben always provides a good read and Nobody’s Fool is no exception. - Keith Millar
Published by Century. The ISBN is 978-1-529-90613-4. Recommended retail price is R309.
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