Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben

 

"There was something about the release of breath as you pulled the trigger, the stillness, the quiet before the almost-welcome recoil, that soothed and comforted her."

Maya Burkett's husband is murdered and a few days after his funeral he appears on her new nanny cam. Now she must solve the mystery of what happened to her husband, who killed him and why or is he even really dead?

The first sentence of the book was artfully designed to pull the reader in, and you can tell right away that when it comes to writing, Harlan Coben really knows his stuff. He created a collection of characters designed to evoke an emotional response, from our heroine newly widowed and tortured by PTSD to her deeply unlikeable babysitter.

But after the plot and characters are introduced, the book slows down quite a bit. It's described as a 'thriller' but honestly, I think that word gets thrown around a little too much and sets expectation too high. For me, a thriller should be on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense and move a little faster and maybe run a little on the darker side. I know, I know, what could be darker than murder? Atmosphere.

The pace is odd to me; strange things keep happening to Maya (and sometimes because of Maya), so you'd think there would be more suspense not less... But for me, it lacks something. It's a good mystery, but not a thrilling one. I don't regret reading it, but I'm not likely to read it again.