Fool Me Once is a 2016 mystery thriller by American author Harlan Coben. The narrative is set in contemporary New York/New Jersey, and the protagonist, widow Maya Stern, attempts to unravel several mysteries surrounding her husband’s murder. The novel deals with The Lasting Consequences of Trauma and Secrets that are unearthed over the course of Maya’s investigation, as well as The Reintegration of Veterans Into Civilian Life and the political and personal fallouts of whistleblowing. Coben is the author of more than 30 mystery thriller novels, including Win, The Boy From the Woods, Run Away, and Tell No One. Fool Me Once is his 28th novel.

Fool Me Once was a New York Times and USA Today number one bestseller and received critical acclaim, including a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Like many of Coben’s bestsellers, Fool Me Once has been adapted into a limited series starring Michelle Keegan and Richard Armitage, premiering on Netflix in 2024.

This guide refers to the edition published by Dutton in 2016.

Content Warning: This novel contains descriptions of graphic murder, domestic violence, war, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), alcoholism, and suicide.

Plot Summary

Protagonist Maya Stern, in her thirties, lives in suburban New Jersey, a far cry from the Middle Eastern battlefields of her life as an Army captain and special ops helicopter pilot. The murder of her husband, Joe Burkett, the scion of a prominent family empire, has exacerbated the PTSD she experiences stemming from the wartime incident that ended her military career: the death of Iraqi civilians during a rescue mission. The video of Maya shooting a missile at an SUV filled with unconfirmed combatants who turned out to be innocent was released by Corey “The Whistle” Rudzinski, who hosts a website for leaked intel. Before Maya was forced into honorable discharge, her sister, Claire, was murdered in what was suspected to be a random home invasion. Now Joe is dead, murdered during a botched robbery attempt in Central Park and shot three times by two assailants in ski masks; Maya ran for help as the fatal shot was fired. Later, however, the narrative reveals that Maya killed Joe. She had learned that Joe tortured and murdered Claire for giving evidence of the Burketts’ corporate malfeasance to Corey, and Maya lured him to his death, concocting a false robbery story to claim innocence.

At her husband’s funeral, she keeps Joe’s mother, Judith, and surviving siblings, Neil and Caroline, at arm’s length; this is the second son they have buried, as another sibling, Andrew, died when he was young. Maya feels like an outsider in their world of privilege. After the funeral, she tries to focus on her daughter, Lily, but she is unable to prevent questions from being asked—both by her close friend and fellow veteran, Shane Tessier, who was in the helicopter with Maya during her career-ending incident, and NYPD homicide detective Roger Kierce. Before Joe’s death, Shane, head of the local military police branch, ran a ballistics test for Maya illegally, testing the bullet from a gun she owns against one from Claire’s case. Detective Kierce later takes the weapon as part of his murder investigation to eliminate Maya as a suspect, knowing that the same gun that shot Claire also killed Joe.

Eileen Finn, Claire’s college roommate and a long-time friend of Maya’s, gifts her a nanny cam disguised as a picture frame so that Maya can spy on Lily’s caretaker, Isabella Mendez. The Mendezes were employed by the Burkett family and include Isabella’s brother, Hector, a gardener, and their mother, Rosa, who was once Joe’s nanny. Though Maya wanted to put Lily in daycare, she was unable to escape the influence of the Burketts.

Maya notices that a red Buick is following her. She has Shane run the plate, though he notes that he’s tired of doing illicit favors for her without knowing the whole truth. Maya keeps secrets from her loved ones in order to protect them; for example, Shane doesn’t know that she cut his radio feed during the rescue mission and chose to bomb the SUV without authority. If Corey leaks the audio, Maya’s culpability will be revealed to her family and the world.

After a punishing night of PTSD auditory flashbacks, Maya checks the nanny cam feed and is startled to see Lily crawl into Joe’s lap. Though she initially wonders if it is an old recording, the shirt that he is wearing in the video is gone from their closet. When Isabella arrives, a shaken Maya shows her the video. Isabella denies seeing Joe. Maya gets in her face, prompting the nanny to pepper spray her. When Isabella rushes out, she takes the camera’s SD card with her. Detective Kierce interrupts the scene and takes Maya to do two lineups. Even though they wore ski masks, Maya picks out the suspects due to their builds and clothing. It’s doubtful that the murder charges will stick, however, as she never saw their faces. Maya’s plan of making Joe’s murder case a circuitous mess to maintain her innocence is working.

Maya learns that Claire had a second phone. She finds it in the secret compartment in their grandmother’s trunk handed down to her sister. The only number recorded in the burner phone belongs to a strip club, Leather and Lace. Maya finds the red Buick in the parking lot—it’s Corey’s. Corey admits that Claire dug up Burkett secrets for him, which likely got her killed. He thinks that Joe might have suffered the same fate. Maya is incredulous—not only because she killed Joe but also because the Burketts would never turn on one another.

At Joe’s will reading, Caroline tells Maya that she saw neither Joe’s nor Andrew’s bodies upon their deaths and thus has a hard time accepting either. Andrew fell off a yacht and drowned when he was in high school at the prestigious Franklin Biddle Academy. Despite occurring years ago, Andrew’s death has a long reach. When they met, Joe confided to Maya that Andrew jumped off the yacht and killed himself, a fact covered up by Judith and the family to keep their reputation intact. However, while May unravels the mystery of the video of Joe, May discovers that Claire learned that Joe was responsible for the death of Theo Mora, a good-natured scholarship student at Franklin Biddle who rivaled him on the soccer pitch. Disguised as a binge-drinking accident, Joe’s hazing of Theo led to Theo’s death. Andrew was Theo’s roommate, and Joe coerced Andrew into helping him move the body. Andrew sunk into a deep, guilt-filled depression. During a sailing trip months later, Andrew begged his brother and friends to come clean, and Joe pushed him off the yacht. Years later, Joe killed Claire for turning over clues to these crimes to Corey.

Corey identifies a former private investigator being paid off by the Burketts: Tom Douglass, who was the Coast Guard officer in charge of Andrew’s case and thus responsible for the cover-up of his murder under the guise of accidental drowning. Maya tries to talk to Douglass, but his wife tells her that he’s been missing since before Joe was murdered. Corey’s hackers find a shed rented by Douglass at the back of a body shop. When they go to check it out, breaking its chains, they find his body with his throat slit. Douglass is another of Joe’s victims.

After following Claire’s footsteps digging into Franklin Biddle’s history, Maya learns the truth about Theo’s and Andrew’s deaths from Christopher Swain, a friend of the Burkett boys who was on the yacht. Christopher tells Maya everything because he finally feels safe—Joe is dead. Four men attempt to kidnap Maya outside of Christopher’s rehab facility, but Maya’s military training kicks in. Though one of the gunmen tells her that Joe sent them, Maya knows that it’s a setup to make her think that she’s losing her sanity. Maya pretends to have a breakdown so that the assailants underestimate her, buying her time to react. She shoots the gunmen and flees.

Promising to avenge Andrew as well as Claire, Maya sets a final trap for the Burketts. She tells the whole truth to Shane: When Joe behaved suspiciously after Claire’s death, Maya knew at once that one of the guns she kept meticulously cleaned had been fired and stored in her safe improperly. She gave a bullet to Shane to test against the one that killed Claire. Even before confirming that they matched, Maya swapped the murder weapon for another gun of the same make and model in the safe with its firing pin removed and lured Joe to the park. Joe, carrying what he believed to be Claire’s murder weapon, pulled the trigger, and Maya knew for certain that he killed her sister—and would kill the mother of his child without hesitation. Maya, who had the actual murder weapon in hand, then shot Joe three times.

By threatening Isabella and Hector, Maya learns that Judith hired someone to doctor the nanny cam footage to spur Maya into confessing. Maya heads to Farnwood, the Burkett estate, to confess and confront the family. Maya confirms that she killed Joe, but Neil and Caroline are shocked to learn that Joe murdered Andrew. Neil admits to the attempted kidnapping as Judith admits that Joe tortured and shot Claire, whose whistleblowing jeopardized their reputation and financial status.

When Maya threatens to reveal all, Judith tries to buy her silence. However, Neil has a better idea—he fatally shoots Maya. Nevertheless, Maya has the last laugh; Corey’s network rigged the nanny cam to livestream the confessions and her own murder. Twenty-five years after the video goes viral, Lily gives birth to a daughter—Maya’s namesake.