Fool Me Once

Starred review from February 1, 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

May 30, 2016
In his new thriller, a seemingly unsolvable puzzle isn’t so unsolvable. Two weeks after witnessing her husband, Joe, murdered in Central Park, retired special-ops Army Captain Maya Stern consults her newly installed nanny cam and sees Joe enter their living room with their two-year-old daughter. Is it possible Joe survived? Is she losing her mind? Is someone trying to fool her? (The title gives that last one away.) The question becomes, who’s trying to fool her, and why? Reader LaVoy does a masterly job of ginning up genuine suspense and adding much-needed heft to characters so gossamer they threaten to blow off the page. The author did make his protagonist, Maya, fully dimensional, but it’s LaVoy’s impassioned enactment of her trials and tribulations that makes the listener care what happens to her. A Dutton hardcover.