Fool Me Once

#1 New York Times bestseller Harlan Coben delivers his next impossible-to-put-down thriller. In the course of eight consecutive #1 New York Times bestsellers, millions of readers have discovered Harlan Coben's page-turning thrillers, filled with his trademark edge-of-your-seat suspense and gut-wrenching emotion. In Fool Me Once, Coben once again outdoes himself. Former special ops pilot Maya, home from the war, sees an unthinkable image captured by her nanny cam while she is at work: her two-year-old daughter playing with Maya's husband, Joe--who had been brutally murdered two weeks earlier. The provocative question at the heart of the mystery: Can you believe everything you see with your own eyes, even when you desperately want to? To find the answer, Maya must finally come to terms with deep secrets and deceit in her own past before she can face the unbelievable truth about her husband--and herself. *02/01/2016. Capt. Maya Stern Burkett, the heroine of this stellar standalone from Edgar-winner Coben (The Stranger), has suffered more than her fair share of tragedy. Her career as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot came to an end after whistle-blower Corey Rudzinski exposed the civilian deaths caused by her actions in Iraq. Even worse, her husband, Joe Burkett, is shot to death in front of her in Manhattan's Central Park, though Maya is able to give a good description of the masked killers to an NYPD homicide detective. Maya is already dealing with the nightmares from her combat experiences and the murder of her sister, Claire, four months earlier while Maya was stationed in Kuwait. Then, weeks after Joe's funeral, a recently installed nanny cam shows her two-year-old daughter, Lily, crawling onto Joe's lap. Other shocks follow. Implausible links arise between Joe's death and Claire's, and she must face the possibility of more revelations from Rudzinski. Coben is like a skilled magician saving the best, most stunning trick for the very end. Five-city author tour. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron Priest Literary Agency (Mar.) - Publishers Weekly. Praise for Harlan Coben and his novels. "Coben is simply one of the all-time greats--pick up any one of his thrillers and you'll find a riveting, twisty, surprising story with a big, beating heart at its core." --Gillian Flynn, bestselling author of Gone Girl. "Master of 'the hook'" - Charlotte Observer. "Coben can always be relied on to generate thrills from the simplest premises." - Kirkus. "Coben describes Adam's search for the truth behind these allegations -- and the identity of the person who made them -- with masterly skill, springing surprises, raising stakes, seamlessly integrating other victims of the 'stranger' into Adam's tale. He's also a smooth, funny writer." - New York Times Book Review on The Stranger. "[T]horoughly entertaining." -- Publishers Weekly on The Stranger - From the Publisher. 11/01/2015. You would think that former special ops pilot Maya would be happy to see husband Joe on the nanny cam playing with their two-year-old daughter, but she's shocked; Joe was murdered two weeks previously. Coben is an Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony award winner with eight consecutive No. 1 New York Times best sellers to his credit. - Library Journal. *2016-01-21. Coben (The Stranger, 2015, etc.) hits the bull's eye again with this taut tale of a disgraced combat veteran whose homefront life is turned upside down by an image captured by her nanny cam. Recent widows can't be too careful, and the day she buries the husband who was shot by a pair of muggers in Central Park, Maya Burkett installs a concealed camera in her home to keep an eye on Lily, her 2-year-old daughter, and her nanny, Isabella Mendez , while she's out at her job as a flight instructor. She's shocked beyond belief when she checks the footage and sees images of her murdered husband returned from the grave to her den. Confronted with the video, Isabella claims she doesn't see anything that looks like Joe Burkett, then blasts Maya with pepper spray and takes off with the memory card. Should Maya go to the police? They were no help when her sister, Claire, was killed in a home invasion while she was deployed in the Middle East, and she doesn't trust Roger Kierce, the NYPD homicide detective heading the investigation of Joe's murder. Besides, Maya's already juggling a heavy load of baggage. Whistle-blower Corey Rudzinski ended her military career when he posted footage of her ordering a defensive airstrike that killed five civilians, and she's just waiting for him to release the audio feed that would damage her reputation even more. So after Kierce drops a bombshell--the same gun was used to shoot both Joe and Claire--Maya launches her own investigation, little knowing that it will link both murders to the death more than 10 years ago of Joe's brother Andrew and the secrets the wealthy and powerful Burkett family has been hiding ever since. Once again, Coben marries his two greatest strengths--masterfully paced plotting that leads to a climactic string of fireworks and the ability to root all the revelations in deeply felt emotions--in a tale guaranteed to fool even the craftiest readers a lot more than once. - Kirkus Reviews