Reading a Harlan Coben novel just feels right during the fall and winter. Coben’s masterful use of characters that interact in relatable settings makes avid mystery readers and newcomers to the genre instantly captured in the fun. Coben’s writing reads like a binge-able TV drama that forces you to press “next episode” with each page turned and Netflix felt the same way as us. The popular streamer has a deal that has been ongoing for half a decade with the author to adapt many of his best books for the silver screen.
Harlan Coben has eight of his stories adapted for Netflix at this point, featuring fantastic actors like Richard Armitage from The Hobbit film series and Michael C. Hall from the series Dexter. All of the miniseries are created with the intention of watching them in a couple of sittings at most, and we have all of them ranked so you know which ones to start with on your next lazy weekend. These are the best Harlan Coben TV shows to watch right now.
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8. Hold Tight (2022)
1 Season
Genre
Mystery, Crime, Drama
Stars
Magdalena Boczarska, Leszek Lichota, Krzysztof Oleksyn
Created by
Harlan Coben
Watch on Netflix
One of the best parts of the Harlan Coben Netflix shows is the decision to change the location of each story from the original one in the books. Hold Tight takes place in Poland and features talented but unknown actors to American audiences. The story is a pretty standard murder mystery affair as a teenage boy’s weird behavior after the death of a friend unravels much more than just the trauma of the victim. Coben likes to weave lots of personal details into his stories, stretching smaller plotlines into bigger ones as more of the mystery is investigated. Hold Tight is a good starting point for any Coben beginner.
7. Gone for Good (2021)
1 Season
Genre
Crime, Drama, Mystery
Stars
Finnegan Oldfield, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Guillaume Gouix
Created by
Vincent Poymiro, David Elkaïm
Watch on Netflix
Gone for Good follows a French man who never knows when the next person he loves is going to die. He just recovered from two serious deaths in his past when his girlfriend was the next victim of morbidity in his town. Finnegan Oldfield and Nicolas Duvauchelle aren’t going to be very famous to non-French audiences, but they do a superb job bringing Coben’s vision to Netflix. While the book version of Gone for Good is more acclaimed, this TV adaptation serviceably replicates what the novel does and people who didn’t read the original won’t notice the differences.
6. The Woods (2020)
1 Season
Genre
Drama, Mystery
Stars
Grzegorz Damięcki, Hubert Miłkowski, Agnieszka Grochowska
Created by
Harlan Coben
Watch on Netflix
Poland seems to be a favorite location for Harlan Coben’s Netflix shows. The Woods is the second series on this list to take place in the Central European country, but an extra nature element makes it look and feel much different than Hold Tight. This time around, the main character is tied to his past and present when a new murder case in 2019 might provide a revelation regarding the protagonist’s sister’s death in 1994. For those who like Yellowjackets, this series does a good job of providing another outlet for thrills with multiple timelines and connected mysteries across many years with the same people involved.
5. The Stranger (2020)
1 Season
Genre
Mystery, Crime
Stars
Richard Armitage, Siobhan Finneran, Hannah John-Kamen
Created by
Harlan Coben
Watch on Netflix
Richard Armitage is dashing and captivating as usual in the main role in The Stranger. An ambiguous woman approaches Armitage; hence, the title of the series, and his life gets turned upside down afterward. His wife’s infidelities and disappearance are at the top of the list of storylines, but several interconnected subplots connect to this. The Stranger doesn’t deliver on all of its promises, but the lead-up to the final episode is always entertaining, and audiences can be confident that boredom shouldn’t settle in.
4. Fool Me Once (2024)
1 Season
Genre
Drama, Crime, Mystery
Stars
Michelle Keegan, Adeel Akhtar, Richard Armitage
Watch on Netflix
Fool Me Once is the most-viewed Harlan Coben show on the list. With nearly 100 million unique viewers, a lot of eyes were on this series, and it’s not shocking when you hear the plot. The story opens with a domestic murder, like so many of Coban’s plots, but the family members of the deceased see their father is actually still alive when they see footage of him in the house. What’s the mix-up here? Why are some people declared dead when they are actually alive? Fool Me Once asks a lot of good questions and uses a steady pace to solve the mysteries.
3. Stay Close (2021)
1 Season
Genre
Drama, Crime, Mystery
Stars
Cush Jumbo, James Nesbitt, Richard Armitage
Created by
Harlan Coben
Watch on Netflix
Stay Close uses the strength of its three main actors to separate itself from other series in Coben’s library, with Richard Armitage being one of those performers again. The trio come from different walks of life, but their stories intersect when unsolved murder mysteries from the past start coming out into the open yet again.
2. Safe (2018)
1 Season
Genre
Drama, Crime
Stars
Michael C. Hall, Amanda Abbington, Audrey Fleurot
Created by
Harlan Coben
Watch on Netflix
Michael C. Hall plays a father who learns much more about his family than he ever imagined when he begins a frantic search for his missing daughter. Hall’s accent work is a little shaky, considering he never plays foreign characters, but his performance is still fantastic. Anybody who enjoyed the first season of Stranger Things and the hunt for Will Byers will find decent parallels and fun here.
1. The Innocent (2021)
1 Season
Genre
Crime, Mystery, Drama
Stars
Mario Casas, Alexandra Jiménez, Aura Garrido
Created by
Oriol Paulo, Jordi Vallejo
Watch on Netflix
The Innocent takes the Coben universe to Spain, one of the best settings in any of these series. The location makes the stereotypical mystery storylines about a man whose demons reappear a decade later a lot more interesting. Some fans and critics feel this miniseries has the tightest script and clearest vision of the Harlan Coben TV shows.
