How is Netflix's Fool Me Once different from Harlan Coben's book? Differences and similarities explored 

Netflix's Fool Me Once is another of Harlan Coben's novels that was adapted into a series on January 1, 2024, and took the streaming platform by storm, becoming a massive hit.

The story follows Maya, a military veteran, who gets entangled in a web of mysteries when she sees her dead husband, Joe, alive on their daughter's nanny cam.

While the series is adapted from Coben's novel, there are some apparent differences between the two. Here are the key similarities and differences between the Fool Me Once novel and the Netflix series.

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Similarities between the Fool Me Once book and the Netflix series

1) The titular character is the same in the adaptation

Like Harlan Coben's novel, the series's titular character is Maya Stern, a military veteran, played by Michelle Keegan. She killed civilians to save her comrades during the War. Her sister Claire works at Burkett Pharmaceuticals, a company owned by Maya's in-laws.

But Claire realizes that the company is engaging in fraudulent activities, as they were falsifying drug trials and giving out harmful drugs in the market, which were making people sick and killing them. Claire uncovers these secrets and discovers that Maya's husband, Joe, is also in on this. In an effort to protect their family's secret, he kills Claire and stages it as a robbery.

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2) The central mystery around Netflix's Fool Me Once is the same as Coben's novel

While the series made many small changes to the source material, it retains the essence of the mystery surrounding Fool Me Once, involving the titular character Maya. After her husband is murdered, she is shocked to see him hugging their daughter on a nanny cam.

This discovery becomes a catalyst for both the book and the series as Maya investigates how her husband can come alive and begins a haunting investigation that keeps the audience on the edge of their seat.

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Exploring the difference between the book and the series

1) The setting of the story is changed in the series

The location is one of the most significant and visible changes between the series and the novel. While the story is set in New Jersey, Netflix's series takes place in the UK. Coben addressed this major change in an interview with CBS Mornings:

"I have this great team over there. This is the fourth show we’ve done... And so, working with this team is just a lot of fun, and so we just take the story, we move it over, and I think that hybrid makes it richer, you know?"

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2) Netflix's Fool Me Once introduces many new characters and changes the name of many from Coben's novel

To enrich the show's universe, the makers introduced many characters who are not part of Coben's novel:

• Marty McGreggor
• Nicole Butler
• Molly
• Louis (Claire's son)

The Netflix series also changed the names of many existing characters to make them more relatable:

• Eva was changed to Eileen
• Alexa was changed to Abby
• Roger was changed to Sami Kierce
• Hector was changed to Luka
• Jean-Pierre was changed to Alexander Dosman

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How faithful was Netflix's Fool Me Once ending to Coben's novel?

While the central tragedy around Maya's murder and subsequent death was unchanged in the series, the ending made slight changes. In the book, Maya confronts the Burketts about their illegal activities, after which they confess to their crimes. Afterward, Neil fatally shoots Maya, and she dies, but not before she sets up a live-streaming of their confession for the world to see.

In the series, while Maya dies and records her in-laws' confession in the same way, DS Kierece discovers that Maya was the one who killed Joe and framed it as a robbery. While he also does not arrest her in the series, this angle is not in Coben's books.

Additionally, following the epilogue, where Lily gives birth to her daughter, DS Kierce is present at the hospital, which hints that he has been a part of Lily's life, a detail absent from the book.

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