Fool Me Once

Family Secrets

Bestselling writer Harlan Coben’s latest, Fool Me Once, begins with the funeral of Maya Stern’s husband, Joe Burkett. Maya, a pilot and combat veteran had quit the forces under a cloud, and gone on to marry a wealthy man. Earlier, her sister Claire had also been tortured and killed in her own home by killers who escaped, and Maya is told by her grieving brother-in-law that death follows her.

Still haunted by the past, and trying to come to terms with the mugging incident that took her husband’s life, Maya wants to keep her two-year-old daughter Lily safe and installs a hidden camera at a friend’s suggestion, to keep a check on the child’s nanny Isabella.  What she sees during a random check of the footage, shocks her and sets her on the track of an investigation that involves her dead husband’s rich and powerful family. She does not trust Roger Kierce, the homicide detective investigating Joe’s murder and wants to get at the truth.

There’s a Julian Assange kind of whistle blower, Corey Rudzinski, stalking her—the man who had been instrumental in destroying her military career. Then, Kierce drops a bombshell—the same gun was used to shoot both Joe and Claire— and the motive for both lies buried amidst the Burkett family secrets.

The book is fast-paced and masterfully plotted, but after the unexpected climax, when the reader thinks about the sequence of events, there is a big loophole. Still, the many twists and turns make it unputdownable. Reports say a film based on this book is in the making, with Julia Roberts playing Maya.

Fool Me Once

By Harlan Cohen

Publisher: Dutton

Pages: 400