has sold 75m novels worldwide but conquering our bookshelves and Kindles clearly isn’t enough. The past decade has seen the US crime-writing king become a prolific presence on TV, too.
After signing a multi-million dollar adaptation deal with Netflix, he scored several ratings successes. The streaming service duly extended the mutually lucrative arrangement. A whopping 14 of Coben’s bestsellers will now be developed for the screen, with the award-winning author as a hands-on executive producer. That’s before you even get to the Amazon and Sky series.
becoming Coben’s lucky mascot, appearing in most of them. Coben is quite the Anglophile, partly because his brother has lived here for 30 years.
, has been top of the Netflix most-watched charts since its debut on New Year’s Day. “If you don’t like twists and turns, I’m not your guy,” says Coben. They all beg to be binged but what’s his standout series? We count down the 11 so far, from worst to best…
11. Gone For Good (Netflix, 2021)
This earnest French language adaptation fumbled its source material, especially the finale. Ten years after losing the two people he loved most in a terrible tragedy, a social worker is plunged into another violent mystery when his girlfriend vanishes. It’s suspenseful enough but overstuffed with plot, leaps around in time too much and the decade-apart cases never convincingly connect. Pas très bien, Monsieur Coben.
10. Shelter (Amazon Prime Video, 2023)
, who becomes embroiled in the dark fate of a fellow high-school student. Lighter in touch to suit the demographic, the experiment doesn’t quite work. However, Myron’s many fans can rest assured – a “proper” adaptation is now in the Netflix pipeline.
9. Safe (Netflix, 2018)
and her boyfriend is found dead, he launches a frantic search, in the process uncovering (you guessed it) a web of secrets. Which of their weirdo neighbours in a swanky gated community is involved? It’s compellingly pacy but a tad too soapy. Hall’s wobbly British accent is downright laughable at times.
8. Hold Tight (Netflix, 2022)
The second of two Polish adaptations of Coben’s work, this one sees an 18-year-old go missing soon after his friend dies. As his mother embarks on a harrowing hunt, the seemingly perfect façade of an affluent Warsaw suburb slowly peels away, laying bare all manner of unpleasantness. It’s a loose sequel to The Woods, sharing several characters, but Hold Tight isn’t as drum-tight.
7. Missing You (Netflix, 2025)
’ Rosalind Eleazar makes for a powerful protagonist, while Lenny Henry pops up as her father, who was also on the force. It’s slickly efficient but the dialogue creaks and it feels rushed, so not all the narrative threads tie up neatly enough. There’s also an oddly distracting cameo from Busted bassist Matt Willis.
6. Stay Close (Netflix, 2021)
. That and more comes bubbling to the surface when James Nesbitt’s haunted cop investigates a local man’s disappearance. What’s their connection to a seedy paparazzo and a scene-stealing necklace? Coben ties it all together in irresistible style.
5. The Five (Sky, 2016)
With that title, how could it place anywhere else? This early gem is an outlier, since it was an original TV creation by Coben, not based on one of his novels. A quartet of childhood friends are left traumatised after the fifth disappears on a walk into the woods. A serial killer claims responsibility and the case seems to be closed – until 20 years later, the missing boy’s DNA is found at a murder scene. Has he been alive all along? Cue cliffhangers and audacious twists.
4. The Woods (Netflix, 2020)
Unusually for a Coben creation, this gritty Polish drama is set across two different time periods – and all the better for it. In the present day, Warsaw lawyer Paweł Kopiński is asked to identify the body of a murder victim. Is the crime linked to a disastrous summer camp 25 years earlier, when two people were murdered and Pawel’s sister went missing without trace? As his hopes rise that she’s still alive, it’s tensely gripping with a terrific finale.
3. The Innocent (Netflix, 2021)
This rollicking Spanish language series, largely set in Barcelona, sees a happily married man’s life torn apart by one phone call. It emerges that nine years previously, he tried to break up a nightclub fight and accidentally killed one of the combatants. As his version of events is called into question, he faces a race against time to prove his innocence. The puzzle pieces fit together in daringly unexpected ways, making for a satisfying story of guilt and redemption.
2. Fool Me Once (Netflix, 2024)
. So far, so normal. Well, except that he was shot dead a year ago, right in front of her, and she attended his funeral. Michelle Keegan makes a superb lead, while Joanna Lumley chews the scenery as her conniving mother-in-law and Adeel Akhtar steals every scene he’s in. This fiendishly addictive potboiler proved a runaway hit last year, becoming the sixth most successful Netflix show of all time. Bonus point if you can name the five shows above it. (We’ll give the answer below)
1. The Stranger (Netflix, 2020)
. Who is she? How does she know all this? Why is she telling them? The reliably excellent Siobhan Finneran adds heft, Paul Kaye brings menace, while Jennifer Saunders has huge fun in a supporting role. A brilliantly binge-able psychological thriller with an atmosphere of brooding paranoia.
Quiz answer: we asked you for the five shows above Fool Me Once in the list of most successful Netflix series of all time. They are Squid Game, Wednesday, Stranger Things, Bridgerton and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Well done if you named all (or even most) of them.
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