Nobody's Fool

Nobody’s Fool is a 2025 crime thriller by New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben and a sequel to his 2016 novel Fool Me Once, which was adapted into a Netflix series in 2024. Nobody’s Fool picks up one year after the conclusion of Fool Me Once and follows former detective Sami Kierce. While teaching a criminology class, Sami thinks he sees a woman from his past whom he thought he had accidentally killed. Sami embarks on a quest for answers, which brings him in contact with the secretive Belmond family. Sami’s private investigation—aided by his students and former police partner Marty—exposes a complicated cover-up plot of faked identity. The novel interrogates The Difference Between Appearance and Truth, The Tension Between Legal and Personal Justice, and The Importance of Confronting Past Trauma. 

This guide is based on the Grand Central Publishing 2025 hardback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of substance use, death, addiction, and antigay bias.

Plot Summary

Nobody’s Fool opens with former police detective Sami Kierce remembering a post-college vacation on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain. Sami met a young woman, Anna, in a club, and the pair instantly connected. Sami deviated from his itinerary to stay with Anna. After a night of heavy partying, Sami woke to find Anna covered in blood and himself holding a knife.

Twenty-two years later, Sami has been fired from the NYPD because his impulsive decisions endangered a witness. Sami now does unpaid private investigative work for Whit Shaw Law. He also works as a criminology teacher at a pay-as-you-go night school. His class is an eclectic group of students who all have an interest in true crime. During a show-and-tell period, Sami thinks he sees Anna alive and well in the back of his class. She runs away, but Sami gets close enough to tuck a tracking device in her pocket. Sami follows the tracker to a remote Connecticut estate and trespasses to get closer to the house. Two men find him, assault him, and threaten to kill him, but they ultimately let him go. Sami recruits his former partner Marty to investigate the estate’s owners. Before Sami can explain his whereabouts to his wife Molly, he learns that Tad Grayson has been released from prison, and he heads directly to the prison to watch Grayson’s press conference. Sami convicted Tad Grayson nearly two decades ago for the murder of his fiancée, Nicole. Since Sami was fired for misconduct, many of his old convictions have been reopened, leading to Tad’s release. Tad invites Sami to investigate Nicole’s murder with him to help clear Tad’s name, and Sami outright refuses, since he’s still convinced Tad is guilty.

Sami learns that the Connecticut house is owned by the wealthy Belmond family, famous because their daughter Victoria was allegedly kidnapped in 1999 and reappeared 11 years later. He suspects that the woman he knows as Anna is actually Victoria Belmond. Sami sets up a class with his elite students to discuss the cold case. After her 11-year absence, Victoria turned up in a diner with a shaved head and amnesia. A DNA test confirmed her identity, but the family kept her out of the public eye. The students worry about Sami’s emotional connection to the case, but they agree to help him investigate and watch the Belmonds. Polly and Gary, two students, tail Victoria/Anna into the city, and Sami confronts her in a theater. She claims she doesn’t know who Sami is but takes his contact information. Marty investigates the official FBI file, which casts doubt on Victoria’s brother Thomas, who has a history of convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol and other substances in his youth.

Sami worries about his financial instability and the stress of his past’s re-emergence, so his father offers to move the whole family to Florida, where they can start over. Sami and Molly consider the option, but they don’t want to run away from their home. Sami reluctantly meets Tad Grayson’s ailing mother, who makes a deathbed confession that Tad was with her the night of Nicole’s murder. Brian Powell, Tad Grayson’s old cellmate, stalks Sami and his family, leading to a violent confrontation with Sami on the street.

Victoria/Anna surprises Sami with a home visit, hoping his story about Spain might jog her memory. She claims she saw Sami in the news and felt compelled to help him. Sami is secretly convinced that Victoria/Anna is lying about her amnesia. Sami reveals the full story about Spain to Molly—since only his father knows the whole truth—and they both realize Anna/Victoria and her drug dealer Buzz scammed Sami by pretending Anna was dead so he wouldn’t ask questions about his missing money.

Sami gets a sudden invitation to meet Archie Belmond, Victoria’s father. Archie has Sami sign an NDA and offers him a total of $600,000 to investigate Victoria’s kidnapping. Sami questions members of the Belmond family—Talia, Victoria’s mother, and Thomas—to learn more about the night of Victoria’s disappearance. Sami takes his family to Spain to continue his investigation, where he collaborates with the police to find old mugshots of Buzz. Sami follows the lead to Tennessee, where Buzz is now a film producer. Buzz admits to scamming Sami with Anna, whom he knew as a girl under the same trafficking handlers who forced them into delinquency. Buzz was arrested for assault while protecting Anna, and he never saw her again after that. Sami tracks down the daughter of the agency owners who groomed Buzz and Anna, Jennifer Schultz, and recruits her to find Anna’s information in her private database.

Sami meets with Anna/Victoria to discuss his findings, and she reveals that she does remember Buzz, Sami, and what she did to him in Spain. She makes Sami promise to protect her family, but before she continues her explanation, someone shoots her and Sami. Anna/Victoria dies, and Sami is rushed to the hospital. At Anna/Victoria’s funeral, Archie tells Sami to stop the investigation, but Talia urges him to keep going. Sami’s next stop is at the Burkett family estate, where he hopes to speak with Caroline Burkett, Victoria’s best friend at the time of her disappearance. Sami speaks with Caroline’s smug mother Judith instead, who reveals that Talia lied about her alibi. Sami becomes convinced that the Belmonds are deceiving him.

Sami learns his stalker’s address but finds the man murdered in his apartment. Sami visits Caroline Burkett in a substance use rehabilitation facility, and, without her mother around, she speaks openly about Victoria. Caroline and Victoria were in a secret relationship, but when a sudden public display of affection at a New Year’s Eve party drew jeers from their classmates, Victoria ran out of the party. Caroline followed Victoria outside and saw her go into a nearby bar to pick up Thomas, who wasn’t at home as he claimed. Jennifer Schultz learns that the girl Sami knew in Spain was really an Anna Marsten, a young runaway, which means that the “Victoria” who reappeared in 2010 was Anna all along.

Sami presents his findings to the Belmonds and confronts Archie and Thomas with the facts he has learned—that Victoria was actually Anna, that they lied about their alibis, and that the real Victoria must be dead. Thomas tearfully admits that he killed Victoria in an intoxicated driving accident on their property. Rather than lose his son to the prison system, Archie concocted the plan to fake Victoria’s kidnapping. When he met Anna, who closely resembled Victoria, Archie hired her play his daughter. Archie used his wealth to keep the media and friends away so no one could see the difference, and he faked the DNA test. Talia still doesn’t know the truth about Victoria, and Archie forces Sami to abide by their NDA and not tell her.

Three weeks later, Sami discovers concrete evidence that Tad Grayson is behind the shooting, and he has Tad arrested. Sami concludes his night class and subtly leaks information about Victoria’s replacement to podcasters in his class. Sami knows Victoria’s death is outside of the statute of limitations, but he wants the Belmonds to face some kind of justice. Sami visits Anna’s grave and imagines how different their lives would have been if everyone had been honest. Sami learned that Anna gave birth in the months after they were together, so he promises her to keep seeking the truth.