For more than thirty years American author Harlan Coben’s mystery-thrillers have been a staple on bookshelves around the world. Recently, you may have noticed they’ve also become a major fixture on the Netflix homepage.
The award-winning novelist has written 35 books to date, and he currently has more than 80 million books in print worldwide. Eight of his works have been adapted for the small screen so far, and they’re all currently available to stream on Netflix. Now that we know where to watch them, the only question is … where do we start?
All of Harlan Coben’s Netflix shows, in order of release date
In 2018, Coben inked a 5-year deal with Netflix to adapt 14 of his books into television series. The deal was re-upped in January 2024 after the smash success of the streamer’s most recent Coben release, Fool Me Once. Netflix recently announced that two more of his books will be adapted, and now his popular Myron Bolitar series is also on the table, so fans hope to see their favorite character brought to life soon as well.
Can’t wait for the new Coben series to hit Netflix? You don’t have to! Below you’ll find the first eight books that were adapted into TV shows, in order of their release date.
Safe
This eight-episode series starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter) dropped on May 10, 2018. The story follows widowed surgeon Tom (Hall) as he raises his two daughters solo after his wife’s passing. When his 16-year-old daughter Jenny (Amy James-Kelly) suddenly goes missing with her boyfriend (Freddie Thorp), long-dormant deeds bubble to the surface and threaten Tom’s entire existence. Like most of Coben’s work, this show features lots of twists, turns, and dirty little secrets coming to light.
The Stranger
The Stranger was released on January 30, 2020. Richard Armitage plays Adam Price, a British dad who’s left reeling when a total stranger (Hannah-John Kamen) shows up out of the blue with inexplicable knowledge of his family’s inner workings. Adam confronts his wife Corinne (Dervla Kirwan) with the stranger’s accusations, and his wife promptly goes missing. Then one of Adam’s teen son’s friends is discovered naked in the woods near their homes, and the rest of the eight-part series unravels the web of how these two events are connected.
The Woods
The Woods is a Polish production that premiered on Netflix on June 12, 2020. The series switches back and forth between two time periods: 1994, when two children were murdered and another two disappeared while at summer camp; and 2019, when attorney Pawel Kopinski (Grzegorz Damiecki), a child witness back in 1994, is brought into identify a body connected to the crime. Kopinski tries to solve the decades-old mystery, but be forewarned: The series ends with a cliffhanger!
The Innocent
Released on April 30, 2021, The Innocent takes place in Spain. It centers on the character of Mateo Vidal (Mario Casas), a newly-released prisoner poised to make a fresh start at life. Mateo, who went to jail for accidentally killing a man, quickly marries Olivia (Aura Garrido), but it doesn’t take long before the couples’ skeletons start busting out of the closet. As Mateo discovers Olivia isn’t who she seems, the story switches to a detective investigating a suspicious suicide, and we realize that no matter how far we run, we can never outrun a hideous past.
Gone For Good
This series was filmed in France and later dubbed in English for Netflix. It arrived on Netflix on August 31, 2021 and stars Finnegan Oldfield as Guillaume, a social worker whose girlfriend disappears out of the blue. This trauma makes Guillaume relive flashbacks from his past, when his brother and ex-girlfriend were brutally shot and killed on the same night a decade ago. The 5-part miniseries follows Guillaume as he searches for clues about his missing girlfriend and finds the truth about those long-ago murders.
Stay Close
Stay Close features Megan Pierce (Cush Jumbo) as a British bride-to-be and mother-of-three who comes home from her bachelorette party to find a mysterious note on her door. It seems that Megan is not who she says she is, and someone from her past wants to send her a message. Detective Michael Broome (James Nesbitt) enters the picture to investigate two missing local men, and soon he and Megan’s stories are inextricably tangled. This series premiered on Netflix on December 31, 2021.
Hold Tight
This second Polish production arrived on April 22, 2022. There are two storylines here; one focuses on a man who disappeared after his friend died. The second is about a psychotic killer who hides in plain sight in a wealth Warsaw community. This was the least well-received Coben adaptation, earning just 39 percent audience approval on Rotten Tomatoes.
Fool Me Once
Finally, the most recent Coban adaptation: the oft-confusing Fool Me Once. This series was released on January 1, 2024, and it’s about military veteran Maya (Michelle Keegan), who is deeply in mourning for her recently deceased sister and husband (Richard Armitage, in a second Coben appearance). Then, a hidden nanny cam video reveals new footage of her husband, prompting Maya to wonder whether he’s really dead or if he faked his own death. Elsewhere, her niece (Dänya Griver) and nephew (Daniel Burt) investigate their mother’s murder … and find out how Maya is involved.
What’s next in Coben adaptations?
Deadline reported a plan to produce the Myron Bolitar series based on Coben’s popular detective books. This collection of thrillers center around Bolitar, a former basketball star who now runs an athletic talent agency … and solves crimes on the side. With eleven books in the series, plus two spin-offs (including 2021’s Win, which is also included in the new deal), there’s plenty of grist for the Netflix mill.
This deal with Netflix adds four more years to Coben’s original arrangement. There’s no word yet on when we can expect any additions to the oeuvre, but as previously mentioned, both Missing You and Run Away have a green light for production and should appear on Netflix sometime in the next year. In the meantime, you can find all eight of Coben’s current television adaptations streaming on Netflix.
Don’t see the show you were expecting to see on this list? Head over to Amazon Prime Video, home to the (sadly canceled) show Sheltered and Coben’s upcoming original series (co-written with Danny Brocklehurst), Lazarus.
(featured image: Netflix)
