As one of the most prolific and successful mystery writers of the past 30 years, it's unsurprising that many of Coben books so far adapted, most have enjoyed a generally positive critical reception.

Productions of Safe, The Stranger, The Woods, The Innocent, Stay Close, and Fool Me Once have all been rated as "Fresh" on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes – further highlighting just how suited Coben's writing is to television. However, the burgeoning Coben-verse hasn't been a total success. Gone for Good and Hold Tight have both failed to impress critics, while other shows have been more polarizing than their overall critical scores suggest.

*audience score only

11 Caught (2025)

A Reporter Investigates A Young Woman's Disappearance

Based on the 2010 novel of the same name, Caught is a Spanish-language Harlan Coben adaptation made in Argentina. It was shot in 2024 and premiered in 2025 on Netflix. The plot follows the family of a 17-year-old girl named Haley McWaid, a good girl and captain of the lacrosse team who is preparing to leave for college next year. When Haley doesn't come home one night, and there is no word from her for three months, the community panics and suspects the worst.

The film follows a journalist (Soledad Villamil) as she begins to uncover the mysteries behind the girl's disappearance. She whittles down the information and the long list of suspects as she searches for the truth. The series is a Netflix exclusive, ing the other Harlan Coben movies on the streaming service. The series has no reviews yet, but it seems to follow the same pattern as the author's other Netflix adaptations.

10 Just One Look (2025)

A Jewelry Designer's Husband Goes Missing

Released in March 2025, Just One Look is a Polish-language mystery thriller based on the 2004 standalone Harlan Coben novel. In the book, a woman finds a photograph in a group of pictures she has just developed. She has no idea who the people are in this particular photo except for one. Her husband is in the photo, taken before she knew him. When she shows it to him, he gets into his car and leaves. When she sets out to find out what happened to her husband, she finds her life in danger and her past coming back to haunt her.

Just One Look is the third Harlan Coben adaptation from Poland (following The Woods and Hold Tight). The audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are almost universally negative. However, there are some positive reviews from critics, who mostly say that Harlan Coben movies deliver what they promise - easy-to-digest stories with unexpected twists and turns that are readily easy to binge-watch, which is why Netflix loves bringing them to the streaming service.

9 Gone For Good (2021)

The Disappearance Of A Man's Girlfriend Connects To A Past Incident

Based on Coben's 2002 novel of the same name, Gone for Good is a French-language thriller that sadly fails to live up to its source material. Starring Finnegan Oldfield, Nicolas Duvauchelle, and Garance Marillier, the 2021 series uses multiple timelines to tell a story of family tragedy and hidden secrets. The main narrative revolves around Guillaume, whose girlfriend's mysterious disappearance somehow connects to a personal tragedy from 10 years ago.

Although Gone for Good is full of Coben's signature surprises, the use of multiple timelines overcomplicates the story, to the point where many of the most significant reveals lose their impact. It is also a more serious take on the material, focusing less on the constant twists and turns Coben fans are used to and looking more at the emotional impact these developments have on the characters.

It doesn't help that the Gone For Good novel is also written in the fast-paced and gripping way Coben usually delivers, which makes the gradual pace of the series stand out negatively even more.

While this is an interesting new approach to take, its slow-burn feel lacks the excitement that Coben's other shows have. It doesn't help that the Gone For Good novel is also written in the fast-paced and gripping way Coben usually delivers, which makes the gradual pace of the series stand out negatively even more.

8 Hold Tight (2022)

Parents Worry About Their Kids In The Aftermath Of A Death

Harlan Coben likes to jump around from older protagonists in his stories to younger characters leading their own adventures. Hold Tight delves into a generational divide in a compelling way with a thriller about parenting. The story takes place in the aftermath of the death of a local student and the reaction from the protective parents in the community.

The miniseries asks questions about where the line is drawn between focusing on the well-being of a child and being over-protective to a fault. But much like Gone for Good, Hold Tight's greatest weakness is its muddying of what could have been an effective premise.

The original novel revolves around multiple disparate storylines that are only knitted together in the book's dramatic ending. The Polish-language miniseries tries to take a similar approach, starting with a mysterious murder and disappearance. Yet audiences were largely left confused as to which events were taking place in what storyline. As a result, most were left frustrated, with some giving up on the series before its conclusion – typified by Hold Tight's poor audience Rotten Tomatoes score of just 39%.

7 Missing You (2024)

A Detective's Missing Fiance Shows Up On A Dating App A Decade Later

Missing You tells the story of an NYPD detective named Kat Donovan who faces a huge mystery when her ex-fiancé Josh shows up on a dating site after he disappeared a decade earlier. As Kat looks into getting closure from Josh, she finds herself discovering a sinister web with a group of ruthless criminals who kidnap and torture people for their financial information. Her father's murder and her suspicion that the killer convicted for it might have been telling the truth leads to a labyrinth of secrets that comes bubbling to the surface.

The movie itself really puts a lot of stock into the double lives and shocking revelations, while critics say that this comes at the expense of deep character development, which is a necessary element to the novel's original story. However, critics also say that fans of Harlan Coben's works and the adaptations based on them should find a lot to love in this series, although it falls short of his best.

6 Fool Me Once (2024)

A Woman Discovers Her Supposedly Dead Husband May Be Alive

Like many of Harlan Coben's best stories, Fool Me Once uses elaborate plot twists to subvert the audience's expectations. In the case of the Michelle Keegan-led miniseries, these twists tread right up to the line between shocking and laughable. Keegan stars as Maya Stern, an ex-soldier whose husband is killed before apparently reappearing on a baby monitor days later. The series then unpacks the couple's complicated relationship, explaining the connection between the husband's murder and another previous death along the way.

While Fool Me Once stretches credulity, audiences and critics have generally enjoyed the series – largely thanks to its brazen approach to the ending reveal. changes many things about the book, possibly in an attempt to streamline the convoluted story into something more palatable for fans. However, that cannot save the show from being weighed down by its many twists. Despite these issues, the series is still a highly binge-able mystery that also features a standout role for Adeel Akhtar as DC Sami Kierce, stealing the show with his grounded and fun performance.

5 The Stranger (2020)

A Secret From An Unknown Women Turns A Man's Life Upside Down

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The Stranger

TV-MA

Drama

Crime

Mystery

Release Date

2020 - 2019

Network

Netflix

Directors

Daniel O'Hara, Hannah Quinn

Cast

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• 
  Richard Armitage
• 
  Hannah John-Kamen
• 
  Siobhan Finneran
• 
  Jacob Dudman

• 

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The Stranger is a British mystery thriller series based on Harlan Coben's novel. It revolves around the impact of a stranger who reveals secrets to others, causing turmoil in their lives. Richard Armitage stars as Adam Price, a man whose life unravels after a stranger discloses a shocking secret about his wife. The series explores themes of deception and the consequences of hidden truths.

Creator(s)

Harlan Coben

Main Genre

Mystery

Seasons

1

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Based on Coben's successful 2015 novel, The Stranger successfully recaptures the source material's atmosphere of paranoia and deception. Starring Richard Armitage as Adam Price, the series begins with Price's interaction with the titular Stranger – a mysterious woman in a baseball cap who tells him that his wife had faked a pregnancy. This kickstarts a catalog of devastating events, including the disappearance of Price's wife and further blackmail against other people in his orbit.

The Stranger was the first of four Harlan Coben Netflix series that Richard Armitage starred in.

The series features the same fast-paced delivery of endless plot twists but proves that it is difficult to mimic the effectiveness of these reveals in the same way Coben does in his books. The Stranger is a solid adaptation that faithfully adheres to the original story, but does not quite capture the same addictive nature of the source material. Still, there are a lot of thrills along the way that lead to the mysterious plotlines coming together relatively neatly, which makes for a satisfying series overall.

4 Safe (2018)

A Widower Searches For His Missing Daughter

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Safe

TV-MA

Crime

Drama

Mystery

8.0/10

Release Date

2018 - 2018-00-00

Cast

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• 
  Michael C. Hall

  Tom Delaney
• 
  Amanda Abbington

  Sophie Mason

• 

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Safe is a mystery drama television series created by Harlan Coben. The show stars Michael C. Hall as Tom Delaney, a widowed surgeon searching for his missing teenage daughter within a gated community. As Tom delves deeper into the disappearance, he uncovers a web of dark secrets about the seemingly perfect neighborhood.

Creator(s)

Harlan Coben

Main Genre

Crime

Seasons

1

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The first of Harlan Coben's collaborations with Netflix, Safe remains one of the platform's strongest series yet. Unlike other series, Safe is an original story created by Coben for the small screen and is not based on one of his novels. The show follows Dexter's Michael C. Hall as Tom – a grieving widower whose world is further shattered when one of his teenage daughters goes missing. The movie examines the blow to Tom's reality that his wealthy and privileged life still cannot protect his loved ones.

Safe is the first of Harlan Coben's shows on Netflix.

Full of the author's signature sleight of hand, Safe suffers from idiosyncratic features such as Hall's forced English accent. Nevertheless, Hall makes for a compelling lead and is backed by a strong ensemble, making for one of the best-acted of Coben's shows. There are some melodramatic elements and ridiculous contrivances with the secrets of this gated community Tom is a part of, but it is all elevated by the compelling characters and the well-crafted cliffhangers that make it an easy show to keep binging.

3 Stay Close (2021)

A Disappearance Connects To Three Different Storylines

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Stay Close

TV-MA

Crime

Drama

Mystery

Release Date

2021 - 2021-00-00

Cast

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• 
  Cush Jumbo

  Megan Pierce
• 
  James Nesbitt

  DS Michael Broome
• 
  Richard Armitage

  Ray Levine
• 
  Sarah Parish

  Lorraine Griggs

• 

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When Carlton Flynn disappears 17 years after Stewart Green's vanishing, interconnected lives unravel as secrets, lies, and unsolved mysteries surface. This gripping thriller explores the impact of past events on present relationships, drawing individuals into a web of intrigue and danger as they confront their hidden truths.

Main Genre

Crime

Seasons

1

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Another collaboration between actor Richard Armitage and Harlan Coben, Stay Close is a fine exemplar of several core Coben tropes. Like many of the author's other stories, Stay Close follows three seemingly unconnected characters who are secretly unified by their ties to a single significant event. In this case, the event in question is the mysterious disappearance of a man named Stewart Greene, whose case threatens to upturn all three main characters' lives for different reasons.

Stay Close successfully manages to balance all three stories without compromising the pace of the action. While many of Coben's adaptations require the audience to buy into a bit of the silliness and absurdity of the world, Stay Close also finds a lot of strength in embracing those aspects more than most of his series. This is especially true of a pair of killers who are also musical theater fans. It is also a show elevated by the central performance, with Cush Jumbo bringing the character of Megan Pierce/Cassie Morris to life with emotion and strength.

2 The Woods (2020)

A Detective Looks Into Past And Present Crimes

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The Woods

TV-MA

Crime

Drama

Mystery

8.0/10

Release Date

2020 - 2020-00-00

Cast

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• 
  Grzegorz Damiecki

  Pawel Kopinski
• 
  Agnieszka Grochowska

  LAura Goldsztajn

• 

Where to watch

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WHERE TO WATCH

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The Woods (2020) is a Polish crime drama series directed by Leszek Dawid and Bartosz Konopka. Based on Harlan Coben's novel, it follows prosecutor Paweł Kopiński who reopens a cold case from his youth involving a disappearance from a summer camp that holds deep personal significance. The series explores themes of loss, memory, and the haunting impact of buried secrets.

Main Genre

Crime

Seasons

1

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Another Polish-language production of Coben's work, The Woods is a masterful example of non-linear storytelling. Set across two different time periods, the show switches between 1994 and 2019, in which a detective is forced to confront a horrific event from his past to solve a murder in the present. Tense and brooding and boasting some solid performances from its cast, The Woods is as much a study in trauma as it is a gripping whodunit TV mystery.

Unlike lesser Coben adaptations that fumble with the complexity of Coben's many storylines, The Woods successfully interweaves its two settings, making its finale all the more effective as a result. For those who might not have enjoyed how much Stay Close was willing to be absurd, The Woods is a much grittier story that makes for a tonally different Coben mystery. The storytelling can be dense at times, and it is a show that demands attention from the viewers, but that is not difficult as it maintains the gripping, twist-filled nature of the source material.