In typical Harlan Coben fashion, NOBODY’S FOOL grabs you by the throat on the first page and leaves you gasping for air until he is done with you.

There is a reason that Coben’s streaming adaptations are so popular; this guy flat out knows how to write a thriller. Being a reader first and foremost, I must stand by the adage that the book is always better. Fans and newcomers alike will be in for a treat and several unnerving hours while enjoying this one.

"There are so many unexpected twists that at certain points I had no way of predicting where the story was going. Trust me when I say that Harlan Coben is in top form here...and Sami Kierce is indeed nobody’s fool."

Recent college graduate Sami Kierce is on a European backpacking tour with members of Bowdoin College's lacrosse team. One night, while visiting a club in Costa del Sol, Spain, he meets an alluring young woman named Anna and is instantly attracted to her. They spend several days together, visited only by Buzz, a Dutch drug dealer.

Everything changes radically for Sami when he wakes up one morning after a wild night to find himself covered in blood next to Anna, who does not appear to be breathing as she lies in her own pool of blood. Buzz barges in and urges Sami to leave and never return, or he will face charges. This experience forever haunts Sami and is the impetus for his decision to become a detective.

With the events of Spain decades in the past, Sami has embraced his life as a married man with a newborn. Along with taking on low-intensity private investigator gigs, he teaches a night class to wannabe sleuths in New York City, and they turn their attention to the murder of Sami’s former fiancée, Nicole. They were both on the job at that point when Nicole was killed by a gunshot to the head from Tad Grayson. Suddenly, Sami’s world is turned upside down when an attorney working on cases involving allegedly innocent people who are behind bars announces that they had taken Grayson’s case and found enough evidence to get his conviction overturned.

Grayson, in an unexpected turn, approaches Sami about digging into his case, swearing he had nothing to do with Nicole’s death. Sami and his students are interested enough to discover if Grayson’s claims are true or not. Meanwhile, one night during a class, a mysterious woman shows up, which sends a chill down Sami's spine. Even though decades have passed, he would never fail to recognize Anna, who immediately bolts from the building.

What makes Anna’s appearance that much more interesting is that she actually may be the infamous Victoria Belmond, who mysteriously disappeared one day and was later presumed to be dead. Many years later, she was discovered in a diner with her head shaved and suffering from complete amnesia. This was all front-page material, and now Sami is determined not only to find out what really happened to Anna, but to uncover the truth behind Victoria’s disappearance. The Belmond family is not at all pleased with Sami sticking his nose into their business and threatens him with physical violence to scare him off.

What really makes NOBODY’S FOOL sing, in addition to the author's usual plotting wizardry, is how both mysteries in Sami’s life are eventually pulled together in the most unlikely way. There are so many unexpected twists that at certain points I had no way of predicting where the story was going. Trust me when I say that Harlan Coben is in top form here...and Sami Kierce is indeed nobody’s fool.