Bestseller author Harlan Coben (The Stranger, Missing You, Stay Close) is launching his new novel, Nobody’s Fool, on Tuesday. What may surprise some fans is where the inspiration for it came from.
“This new book is actually about Adeel Akhtar’s character Sami Kierce in Fool Me Once one year after the events of that series,” Coben tells THR. “And what’s weird is that the Sami Kierce character, and his wife, weren’t major characters in the Fool Me Once book. So it’s almost more of a sequel to the TV series than the book. I don’t know any time that’s ever happened. Certainly, it hasn’t happened in my career.”
“Adeel’s character Sami was quite a small part in the book, so it was a big change we made for the series to really build that character out,” echoes series co-adaptor and co-writer Danny Brocklehurst.
Producer Nicola Shindler adds: “We always look for what’s not in the book that we need for a series adaptation.” And producer Richard Fee concludes: “So, Danny and Harlan worked a lot on building that character, and now Harlan has written another book based on that.”
Coben recalls how the creative team developed the Kierce character for the eight-part series and decided to give him a key role with a story arc that surprised as much as other parts of the show. “I don’t think anybody really saw coming what happened to him,” Coben tells THR.
“A year after the devastating events that took place in Fool Me Once, a secret from former Detective Sami Kierce’s college days comes back to haunt him,” reads the synopsis of the new novel. “Present day is hard enough for Kierce, but his past isn’t through with him yet.” Now a private investigator and a new father working off debt by teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City, one day, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom.
