Fool Me Once

This is the most idiotic book I have ever read. What I write below contains spoilers, which you really should read so you don't have to have your intelligence insulted by reading this nonsense.

The main character's husband and sister are murdered separately in suspicious circumstances. The whole novel is centred on the main character investigating their murders and uncovering the conspiracy behind them.

The plot is fine, albeit dull. The writing is bland. The dialogue can be cringeworthy. The characters are paper thin. It's the type of book you start reading and by the time you realise you don't like it, you've nearly finished it, so you might as well end it.

Then the ending happened. The big ending twist reveals that the main character show more killed her husband because her husband killed her sister.

I'll repeat that. The plot is the main character investigating the murders of her husband and sister to find out who did them. The twist is that she knew who did them all along.

The author is too lazy to even do a cliché Fight Club type scenario, with the main character forgetting what had happened and piecing everything together until the reveal. Instead, we get to the final scenes and it's just "yeah, I knew my husband killed my sister, that's why I killed him." Why was the main character investigating it for the whole novel?! When I was five years old I was told to never end a story with "but it was all a dream", this is worse!

What an absolute insult of a book. Fool Me Once is a perfect title though, I'll never read a book by this author again. show less

I'm pretty much a die hard Coben fan so it's difficult for me to find fault with any of his books. I gave this one 5 stars because I really did enjoy the story line and working out the "who done it"...and believe me there as plenty to work out. The biggest problem I had was with the main character...Maya, a very troubled Iraqi helicopter pilot with a 2 year old daughter and a dead husband...or is he? That's one of the things that you have to work out. Maya just doesn't make you feel much empathy for her... she doesn't feel real and she often behaves in ways that aren't credible. In spite of that It's a fast paced story and a good standalone novel.

"Family and money is never a good mix. Someone is always going to feel resentful."

Maya Stern is an ex-helicopter pilot who is suffering from PTSD when she is a witness to her husband’s, Joe, murder. This comes just months after her sister was tortured and brutally murdered using the same weapon. Days after his funeral she sees footage of him on a nanny cam apparently, playing with their two-year-old daughter. Is he really still alive, is grief playing tricks with her mind or is she having a mental breakdown?

When the SD card is taken, Maya, an ex- captain who was forced out of the Army after a fatal error whilst serving in Iraq,has no proof of what she saw, and no one she tells believes her. Who can she trust? Her nanny who took the SD show more card, the friend who actually gave her the nanny cam, her old Army colleague or the detective leading the inquiry into her husband's death? Unsure who she can turn to she sets out to follow the clues and solve the puzzle herself.

The story starts slowly as we gradually learn more about Joe's early adult life whilst at college, as Maya methodically uncovering a raft of family secrets including the mysterious death of Joe's elder brother. We learn that Joe, despite outward appearances, also has a rather dark side himself and the author asks the reader to ponder just how much we really know about their own partner's past and whether love blinds us to their faults. The pace of the book steadily climbs until we reach a shattering climax.

Initially we meet Maya at her husband’s funeral, still dazed and overwhelmed by feelings of grief and loss. This her an easy character to sympathize with as she seemingly reels from one tragedy, one revelation to another. As you would expect there are numerous twists and turns along the way and I must admit that the identity of Joe's killer took me completely by surprise making the slow build up to it worth the wait.

Overall I really enjoyed the author's writing style and I at times found myself unable to put the book down. It totally sucked me in. Coben is a masterful storyteller and I look forward to reading yet more of his books.

“Things can always be said later, but things can never be unheard.” show less

Maya Burkett is a former special operations helicopter pilot who has just returned from the Middle East. She was publicly shamed and forced to resign after a whistle blower leaked the video of her team killing innocent civilians during a battle. She and her husband are in Central Park one evening when he is shot by two masked masked men. Maya runs away to get help but it's too late for Joe. The day after the funeral she installs a nanny cam, and when she checks it later that night she sees Joe playing with their daughter. While she knows it’s impossible, Maya realizes no one will believe her when the memory card with the images disappears. She decides the only way to find out if Joe is alive is to trace her husband's life back to his show more college days and to two previous deaths.

I thought the author did a great job of creating a character that is overwhelmed by grief, guilt and secrets. You can sympathize with her feelings of paranoia, even though she's not a character that you may really like. She seems so alone and the author does a wonderful job of letting the reader feel what Maya is experiencing in her terrible PTSD moments. I enjoyed how the mystery played out and it had a great ending that I never saw coming. show less

The vibrant red cover for Fool Me Once by Harlan Corben jumps off the shelf, but I have been a fan of Corben’s long before I started blogging, so, when I saw there would be a Netflix series, I had to grab it from the library. I was not disappointed.

Maya’s husband is murdered, but the waters are murky and the mystery is convoluted. Harlan Coben really had me going, but when the mystery was solved and the ending smacked me in the face, I was left speechless. Way to go, Harlan!!!!!!!

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In comparison to other books by Harlan Coben, this one fell a little short of the mark. The storyline and intrigue were interesting but the reveal of it all was just a bit unremarkable; it seemed ridiculously simple for all of the hype and suspense that led up to it. I also found the character of Maya to be extremely unrealistic. She may have been in the war and may be suffering from PTSD but that doesn't mean she needed to be devoid of a personality. At the end of the novel, I was left wondering what was the point of it all. Unfortunately, this novel just missed the mark on way too many levels and I'm going to have to give it a pass. I will continue to read more by this author and I encourage you all to do the same... but maybe skip show more this one? show less

As is the case with all Harlan Coben novels, FOOL ME ONCE is a thriller with many different mysteries going on at once. And that’s what makes this book, all his books, unputdownable. Since I began reading this book, the only constructive thing I did was finish it.

We follow the beautiful but tough Maya, former army captain, a helicopter pilot, as she investigates and gets to the bottom of two murders, first of her sister, then of her husband. The reader will suspect everyone yet still be surprised at the outcome. It’s typical Harlan Coben.

It is also typical of Coben to grab the reader right on page 1 or 2. So I was disappointed that FOOL ME ONCE didn’t grab me until page 63. Still, other readers may differ because the story is show more interesting right away. show less