Readers Guide for Nobody’s Fool by Harlan Coben

Prologue: Spain in 2002-3

• A young college students, is in a bar in Spain with his lacrosse teammates when he meets a girl named Anna.
• He spends the rest of the trip with Anna, sleeping together, drinking, clubbing and taking a few drugs.
• One morning, Sami wakes up covered in blood, holding a knife.

22 years later

• Sami works as a private investigator after getting kicked off of the NYPD following an incident in which he chases a high school student who slipped and fell off a roof.

• Sami also teaches a criminology class at a night school on the lower east side of Manhattan.

• Suddenly, Sami thinks he sees Anna. He mentions that he also used to hallucinate his other murdered lover, Nicole. He runs after her.

(Note: Sami’s hallucinations were a side effect of a medication he was taking (this is part of the Netflix show. In the show Anna was his sponsor, in this book she is a former cop.)

• Sami chases the woman through the school building. It’s definitely her. His boss Chilton shows up and  asks Sami what is going on. Anna is able to escape outside.

• Sami returns to the classroom and asks his student Lenny to help him track Anna, as he has dropped one of Lenny‘s trackers in her pocket.

Sami follows Anna to Connecticut

• Sami goes to Queens to get his car. His wife Molly calls and he tells her he’ll explain everything when he gets home. (He has never told her about Anna or the summer in Spain.)

• Sami follows Anna to Connecticut, where she drives to a fenced area that is blacked out on the GPS. 

• Sami leaves his car and explores the area. He sees a massive mansion and soon two Dobermans are coming after him.

• Two men with guns seem to know who Sami is and seem to be connected to the Burkett family from Fool Me Once. Sami has been on FaceTime with Craig and he tells the two men Craig is an NYPD cop.

Where was “Anna” going?

• Sami texts the location of the compound to his ex-partner Marty, asking for information.

• The next day Sami’s boss Arthur calls with bad news, even worse than the fact that Judith and Caroline Burkett were released on bail.  Tad Grayson, who murdered Nicole, his fiancee, is being released.

• Molly is concerned and asks if the Grayson release is what he was working on last night. He says no, that had to do with a trip to Europe.

Sami Faces His Nemesis Tad

• Sami watches Tad come out of prison after more than two decades in prison. (So we assume Nicole was murdered over twenty years ago, shortly after the incident with Anna?)

• Marty show up as well, to make sure Sami doesn’t “do something stupid.” 

• Tad speaks to the crowd, admitting to sending threatening texts to his ex-girlfriend Nicole but denying killing her.  Reporteers ask him if he’s going to find the real killer.

• Now Sami wonders if Anna’s murder was somehow connected to Nicole’s. Anna appeared at the same time Tad was released, after all.

Sami Learns “Anna’s” True Identity

• Sami and his student Debbie drive to the Connecticut compound where they see four young women pull out of a driveway near the compound. They follow them to a spa.

• Sami tells the girls his tragic Anna story. One of the girls pulls him aside and says that she thinks “Anna” is Victoria Belmond.

• Sami messages his student group and asks them to study the Victoria Belmond kidnapping.

• Arthur calls. Tad wants to meet Sami. At a meeting with Arthur and Kelly, Tad swears he is innocent.

• Sami points out that Tad bought a gun and threatened Nicole right before her death.

Backstory on the Kidnapping of Victoria Belmond:

• Victoria Belmond vanished from a New Year’s Eve Party in 1999. She and her friends were at a pub in the East Village. CCTV showed Victoria leaving at 11:17.

• No one realized Victoria was missing until January 5. She’d sent texts saying she was off on a trip.

• In 2011, a waitress in Maine called police, saying that Victoria was in her diner. DNA showed it was Victoria, and no waitress admitted making the call.

• Sami asks Marty if he can get the Belmond case file from anyone at the FBI.

• Lenny tells Sami that the class thinks the Belmond case is connected to the woman who showed up at class (Anna) and the car they asked him to track.  Lenny says the class wants to help but also suggests that Sami might be a little off his rocker.

• Sami tells Molly he may have dated Victoria Belmond two years after she was kidnapped.

• Polly texts saying they are following Victoria out of the estate.

Sami Confronts Anna

• Sami confronts Anna in a Times Square Theater. She denies ever being to Spain or calling herself Anna. Sami gives her his card and begs her to call.

• Arthur tells Sami that Tad has evidence he will only show to Sami. It’s actually a witness: Sami’s dying mother, who tells Sami that Nicole came to see her three days before she died. Nicole mentioned a personal issue involving her family. She insists Tad with with her on the night Nicole died.

• Sami is shocked that, back at his apartment, Victoria and Molly are having tea.

• Victoria insists she does not know Sami, but she saw his photo in a news story and thought she might know him and tracked him down. She asks Sami to tell her about their time in Spain. 

• Victoria says she remembers nothing about the years she was missing. As she leaves, Sami realizes she’s lying.

Finally Sami Comes Clean to Molly

• Sami finally tells Molly end of the Anna story: he woke up all bloody with a knife in his hand. Anna’s dealer Buzz burst in and told Sami to get out. Sami went to the police, who found Anna’s apartment empty. One day he got an urgent message from the Spanish police, asking him to come to the station, but his father told him to leave the country.

• Sami now wonders if the whole Anna thing was a con.

• Sami gets a disturbing text about Molly’s red nightgown. He sees the Belmond SUV outside, and also a creepy guy with long hair and a face tattoo. He goes out and is told that Victoria’s father wants to talk to him. 

• At the Belmond estate, he’s surprised to see Arthur, who says he was summoned to represent Sami. If he signs an NDA and talks to Victoria’s father, Sami will get $100,000. If he solves Victoria’s case, he will get $500,000

Sami Agrees to Solve Victoria’s Case

• Archie Belmont asks Sami about Spain and Sami tells him the story but leaves out the blood and the knife. Then Sami speaks to Victoria’s mother.

• Molly calls and says she’s being stalked by Face Tattoo guy. The Belmond security guy races Sami back to the city, but when they get there, the creepy guy is gone.

• Sami and Molly go back home, where Sami gets a call from Ella, Nicole’s sister. Ella says Tad has been hanging around her salon. Then Sami sees the face tattoo guy outside their apartment.

• Sami chases and tackles the guy. Two police officers show up and creepy guy plays the victim. The police let them both go, and a nearby store owner offers Sami a photo of the guy.

He Tackles the Victoria Belmont Case

• He asks his class to try to solve the murder of Nicole Brett.

• He interviews Thomas, who still feels guilty about that night. He had just been dumped and was feeling low and drinking too much. He drove Victoria to her party and she asked him to stay, but he went back to his ex’s. Victoria called him at 11 pm but he didn’t answer.

• Sami, Molly and Henry are in Spain.  Sami has an appointment with Spanish Police Chief Carlos Osorio, who tells him that these kinds of scams are common: a woman romances a tourist, then fakes an overdose.

• Sami tells Carlos that the girl who scammed him was Victoria Belmond, and that she had an accomplice, Buzz. Sami asks Carlos for help finding Buzz.

• As Sami visits some of the locations he went with Anna, Carlos summons him back to look at mugshots. Sami easily finds Buzz, whose name is Harm Bergkamp He’d been arrested for attacking a man who went after his girlfriend, Anna Marigold.

Sami Finds Buzz

• The students find Harm Bergkamp in Nashville working on a horror movie, so Sami goes there to talk to him. Harm does not recognize Sami and says he moved from Europe to the US twenty years.

• Sami tells Buzz why he’s there and who hired him. Buzz admits that Anna was paired up with him running tourist robbery scams. Anna had told him a story about running away from an abusive brother in law. He says they scammed the wrong guy and Buzz got arrested.

• Buzz says Anna came in to the scam life through a modeling agency. He tells Sami to leave Anna alone.

• When Sami tells Buzz that Anna is Victoria, Buzz thinks Anna is conning the Belmonts.

• Sami’s students locate the modeling agency and he talks to the daughter of the former owners. Jennifer says the modeling agency was partly legitimate and only trafficked a few people. (Okay, then.)

• Sami meets Victoria at a West Village playground. Victoria admits she does remember him and wanted him to know she was alive. (But why now after all this time?)

Just as Sami is About to Get Answers…

• Victoria says she’ll tell him the truth if he protects her family. She starts telling him something and and then she is shot. Sami gets shot in the shoulder.

• Tad Grayson is being blamed for the shooting. The theory is that he was aiming for Sami but hit Victoria instead.

• Sami is allowed to leave the hospital for Victoria’s funeral.  He tells Victoria’s father that she made Sami promise to protect them. From what? Why? Archie says to leave it all alone. Talia comes up to him separately and says not to listen to her husband.

The books converge

• Sami heads back to the hospital where he is visited by his students. They are tracking down Victoria Belmond’s high school friends. Victoria was friends with Caroline Burkett.

• Marty and Sami go to Farnwood, the Burkett estate, to see Judith Burkett. Judith agrees that Sami can visit Caroline at a rehab center.

• Judith asks about Maya’s daughter Lilly and Sami lies and says he never sees her. Then Judith says that Talia was away in Chicago over New Year’s Eve 1999 meeting a lover. 

• Sami talks to the Belmonds who say they were separated when Talia went to Chicago.

Sami is Reunited with Caroline

• Sami’s students found the guy stalking Sami and Molly: Tad’s old cellmate Brian Powell. They head to his apartment.

• Marty shows up as they are breaking into the apartment, but Brian is dead. Also, the students have analyzed the footage of the New Year’s Eve party and found that Caroline followed Victoria out of the party.

• Sami goes to the rehab center to meet Caroline. She tells the story of the party which matches what Sami knows, except she lies about when she left.

• Caroline admits that she and Victoria were in love. That she kissed Victoria at the party. Victoria ran off and Caroline followed her. Victoria said that Thomas needed help at another bar down the street.

Anna is NOT Victoria!

• Marty tells Sami that Brian was shot with the same gun as Victoria. Jennifer asks Sami to come to her office and shows him a photo of Anna. Anna Marston. Sami realizes that Anna Marston had been impersonating Victoria.

• Sami goes to report to the Belmonds. Thomas admits what Caroline suggested: he called Victoria when she was at the party and she drove him home. 

• Sami accuses Archie of staging the disappearance and getting Anna to impersonate Victoria.  He says he got DNA from “Victoria” and Thomas and that they are not related. (I think Coben is trolling us at this point and every book MUST have a DNA element!)

• Sami asks what happened to Victoria. His theory: Thomas was responsible for Victoria’s death.

• Thomas’s ex Lacy called him after he and Victoria drove home. He was headed out (drunk) to see her, but Thomas hit Victoria with the car as she walked the dog. Archie knew that Thomas he’d prior DUIs and wanted to save him. They buried Victoria in their yard, took the car to a salvage yard, and then sent him to Lacy’s four hours later.  

Epilogue

• Tad Grayson is still free and Sami and his students are still trying to prove he killed Nicole and Brian.

• Marty calls Sami and watts to show him something. It’s a video from he day Victoria/Anna was killed. Sami’s student Raymond was at the park.

• Raymond had been following Tad Grayson and has proof that Tad killed Victoria and hired Powell to stalk Sami.

• Sami goes to Victoria (Anna’s) grave and talks to her. He believes the truth will set them all free. Also, he thinks Anna had a baby sometime after their days together in Spain. (HIS baby???)

• So he will keep seeking the truth.