What is Harlan Coben's best TV series? The answer to that is quite subjective – which won't stop us – and there's plenty to take into account when pitting them against each other, not least that a new one just landed: Lazarus. Each show has the award-winning writer's fingerprints all over them. (Like a crime scene. You see what we d... Yeah, anyway.)
Last year Fool Me Once became a runaway success. The Michelle Keegan-fronted hit stormed straight into the streaming charts after its perfectly timed New Year's Day release in 2024, and has since broken into the list of Netflix's most-watched series of all time (a hard nut to crack).
Missing You replicated this release strategy for the streaming service, arriving on January 1, 2025. Another one is sitting pretty with an impressive 100% Rotten Tomatoes score – plot twist: It's not Fool Me Once *or* Missing You.
Here are all the Harlan Coben series currently available to view, with the best, in our view, saved until last.
12. Gone for Good (Netflix)
First released in 2021, this French-language thriller sees a man plunged into the centre of a mystery when his girlfriend suddenly vanishes.
The man in question has already experienced an intense tragedy, and over the course of its five episodes, he starts to uncover more in a series of twists and turns.
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11. Caught (aka Atrapados) (Netflix)
This was the first Spanish-language Coben production for Netflix and sees Argentinian stars Soledad Villamil and Alberto Ammann fronting a mystery about a journalist trying to expose criminals who have previously evaded justice, but who finds her loyalties torn.
10. Hold Tight (Netflix)
This Polish thriller follows another missing person – only this time, it's a distressed mother who's on the hunt for her teenage son.
To add to the suspense, his disappearance closely followed the death of one of his friends.
9. Shelter (Prime Video)
An unusually young cast (for a Coben series) including Jaden Michael and Adrian Greensmith front this tale of a teen who relocates to New Jersey following a breavement and gets caught up in the disappearance of a student from his new school.
8. Lazarus (Prime Video)
Harlan Coben’s new ‘bone-chilling’ Amazon Prime Video thriller has landed, with critics describing it as a mix between The Silence of the Lambs and The Sixth Sense. Co-created by Bafta winner Danny Brocklehurst, the six-part psychological thriller follows Sam Claflin as Lazarus, who returns home to find that his father (Bill Nighy) has committed suicide.
Relying upon the help of his sister, Jenna (Alexandra Roach), Lazarus begins to have disturbing experiences that can’t be explained. Beset by memories of his past and victims of unsolved murders, he becomes entangled in a series of cold cases as he grapples with the mystery of his father’s death and his other sister’s murder 25 years ago.
7. Just One Look (Netflix)
Coben's novel was previously adapted in French (not available to stream) and then got another crack in Polish. It's slow at times but a broadly faithful account of a jewellery designer who launches an investigation when her husband goes missing and she is shown a picture of him surrounded by people she doesn't know.
6. Safe (Netflix)
Tom (Dexter's Michael C Hall), a wealthy surgeon, is struggling to raise his two daughters alone following his wife's death. This especially ramps up when Tom's oldest daughter Jenny, along with her boyfriend, goes missing after a party.
Conveniently, Tom is now dating a police detective, who he leans on to help locate them. But as part of his own investigation, Tom starts to uncover all manner of secrets.
Set across two different timelines, the fast-forward events see a Warsaw prosecutor called in after a body is discovered. But will this finding shed any new light on the events of that summer camp?
5. The Stranger (Netflix)
Often credited as Harlan Coben's first breakout hit for Netflix, The Stranger was released in January 2020.
Its all-star cast boasted Richard Armitage (who has since become a Harlan Coben staple), Happy Valley's Siobhan Finneran, Buffy's Anthony Head and Absolutely Fabulous legend Jennifer Saunders.
When a mysterious stranger wearing a baseball cap approaches a man to tell him a secret, everything turns upside down for him. His wife goes missing as a result of what he's been told, but what does this stranger actually have to do with it all?
4. Missing You (Netflix)
Missing You – which brings together Richard Armitage and James Nesbitt, as well as introducing Ashley Walters – delivers everything you'd come to expect from a Coben/Netflix partnership.
Rosalind Eleazar from Slow Horses stars as a detective whose life is upended when she notices the dating profile of her former fiancé (Walters), who ghosted her 11 years before. The mystery of his disappearance is all tangled up in the equally mysterious murder of her father.
3. Stay Close (Netflix)
Powerhouses Cush Jumbo and James Nesbitt, again, lead the brilliant ensemble this time, with Suzy Eddie Izzard, Richard Armitage and Sarah Parish also starring.
A suburban mum-of-three, a photographer and a detective still haunted by a cold case find themselves brought together by a disturbing event from the past.
After the shocking murder of her husband Joe, Maya installs a nannycam to watch over their home and their young daughter. But when watching the footage back, she's shocked to see her husband...
2. The Innocent (Netflix)
The only Harlan Coben show to boast a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, this Spanish series was first released to the streaming platform in 2021.
The crime show kicks off with an accidental killing, which leads a man down a dark path. But just as he finds love and a sense of freedom, a phone call pulls him right back into the nightmare.
1. Fool Me Once (Netflix)
Michelle Keegan's acting prowess really did breathe new life into the Harlan Coben drama, and we're not surprised that Fool Me Once has become the most successful of the small-screen adaptations when it comes to the viewing figures. The scene-stealing tussles between Keegan's Maya Stern and Joanna Lumley's deliciously wicked Judith Burkett are worth the runtime alone.
Harlan Coben's collections are now on Netflix and Amazon Prime.
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