Whenever you read a Harlan Corben novel, you know it’s going to be gripping, gritty and glorious, and Nobody’s Fool is no exception.
Following on from Fool Me Once, former NYPD officer Sami Kierce is now a disgraced private eye with a new baby and a boatload of debt.
To make ends meet, he’s running surveillance errands for his lawyer and teaching a night school class.
One evening, as he’s teaching, a woman he recognises appears in the doorway. She flees and he follows because he needs answers: he thought she was dead.
After using some super sketchy tactics to follow her home, he discovers something even more confusing. The woman is actually an heiress who disappeared for decades and then suddenly reappeared.
Kierce is drawn into a confusing world of opulence, which contrasts with the sordid underworld gangs that seem to be chasing the girl.
At the same time, the man who killed Kierce’s fiancé years ago is being released on a technicality.
The cases seem to meld together as Kierce, now retained by the girl’s rich parents, searches for the truth in their shared past while trying to keep an eye on his fiancé’s supposed murderer and uncover the truth.
Corben’s big strength is characterisation, and you can really see that in this novel. From the students in Kierce’s class who start helping him in his investigation to the haughty, wealthy family he’s working for and the utter creep who may or may not have killed his fiancé, each one is memorable and believable.
One thing that does let the book down is the protagonist himself. Sami Kierce is a study in contradictions, and another example of why writers need to show and not tell us about their characters. While Corben tries to convince us that he’s a hardened, streetwise former copper, the actions of his main character show him to be incredibly naive in many respects.
I won’t spoil the ending, but there’s a major twist that sets the book up for its sequel, and frankly that and the entire reason he met the woman who walks into his class in the first place are ridiculous.
Considering the excellence of the supporting characters, particularly the kidnap victim and her obnoxiously wealthy family, it’s a shame that Kierce is so ridiculously gullible in many respects.
You’d have to be very naive not to have spotted the con that was perpetrated on Kierce as a young man, and while he seems very smart and sophisticated in many respects, this and some of the character’s other decisions make him seem bumbling and downright stupid.
Still, if you can suspend your disbelief in the protagonist’s inconsistencies in character, this is a cracking thriller and you can see that it’s definately going to be a Netflix series soon.
So if you’re searching for a gripping crime novel that will keep you guessing, then Nobody’s Fool is the perfect read for you. It’s an easy read and it’s always nice to read the book before the series comes out.
