By
Scott D. Parker
I’m relatively late in reading anything by Harlan Coben, having read the first Myron Bolitar novel just last fall. I’ve since read three Bolitar books but never a standalone entry in Coben’s 37-novel career. When Nobody’s Fool was published, I checked out the audiobook from the library and settled into what is billed as a thriller.
What Does “Thriller” Mean To You?
“A stunningly twisty thriller” are the opening words to the book description so my mind conjured up an idea of what that meant. “Stunningly twisty” told me that I was going to get what Coben is famous for: a story that turned on itself, subverting expectations while truths were uncovered by the characters before that final moment and last page. “Thriller” to me has consistently meant something different than other genres words like mystery or suspense. Thriller is what the Mission Impossible movies are, or novels from Dan Brown or Gregg Hurwitz: fast-paced action filled with fights and gunplay.
Maybe I need to expand my definition of the word thriller because what Coben delivered didn’t align with what I thought I was getting. Were I to tag a genre word to this novel, I’d be more likely to use “mystery” because the tale Coben weaves is excellent, but much of it occurred in the mind and experience of the protagonist.
What is Nobody’s Fool about?
Years ago, Sami Kierce is in Spain after graduating from college. He picks up a girl in a club and they spend a week together. Until the morning he wakes up, covered in blood, a knife in his hand, and the girl, Anna, dead. Panicking, he does what he thinks is the best thing: he flees back to American, but the experience haunts him.
Cut to Kierce now. He’s a PI after getting himself kicked out of the NYPD. He’s married and has a young son. He also teaches night school for people who fancy themselves as detectives. His life is decent and predictable even if he is staring at a mountain of debt and few good prospects.
Until Anna walks into his classroom. She flees. He pursues, and keeps going until he has discovered the answer to every question he’s had for twenty-two years and the new ones he consistently encounters.
How it plays out
The setup is splendid. In fact, the opening scene shows the events in Spain so you get a first-hand look at Sami’s trauma and fear. Within the span of one chapter, we’re already in the present day and the action goes on from there.
But, like I said, what I expected based on the word ‘thriller”—chases, gun fire, actiony stuff—isn’t what this book is about. It’s a suspense book, with a well-crafted, interweaved story that Sami must get through. I was thoroughly engaged from page 1 and eagerly finished the book—I snagged both the audio (for commutes) and ebook (for evening reading) from library—in a week.
What I found most fascinating and most rewarding is the relentless nature of Sami’s quest for the truth. Yeah, this is how books like this are supposed to go, but I sometimes found myself asking “Would I keep going?” Characters always do.
And let’s not forget the sub-plot, where a case Sami worked on as a police detective comes into play and interrupts everything. Well done.
The Side Characters
Templates exist for side characters in mysteries (or any genre, really) and when you start reading a book, depending on the skill of the author, some of those tropes come into play. In this book, Coben delivers some fine side characters that find them not only integral to the plot but actual real people you believe in.
Molly, Sami’s wife, has her husband’s back. Period. And narrator Vikas Adam voices her very well and with a spark of humor and gumption. But it is the group of people in Sami’s class that really felt like a breath of fresh air. They are misfits, a conglomeration of people from all walks of life. When we first meet them—in the scene where Sami sees Anna—I reckoned them as background characters. Little did I know Coben was going to keep them in on stage, enabling Sami’s investigation all the way to the end. And that we’d come to care for them. At one point during a stakeout, one character gives his backstory to Sami. As a story-within-a-story, I was all in and transfixed by the tale. Loved this.
This is only the fourth Coben book I’ve read and the first not involving Myron Bolitar* and I didn’t realize that this was a story that had a previous book and Netflix miniseries. So I can only imagine, perhaps, there will be future books featuring Sami Kierce. If so, then his band of “irregulars” has to be involved.
Nobody’s Fool is brand new and only two months in the bookstores, and I highly recommend you add it to your summer reading list.
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