How the best-selling crime writer became a Netflix sensation – with the help of Richard Armitage

“If somebody tells you they don’t care how their show or book is received, they’re just flat out lying to you.”

Harlan Coben – one of the world’s most successful crime writers – doesn’t mince his words: “Every writer you’ve ever interviewed wants two things, better reviews and a bigger audience.”

The 62-year-old American author has published 37 books and sold more than 80 million copies in 46 languages since his debut nearly 35 years ago, and he is not too proud to admit he’s enjoying his success.

Coben tells Sky News: “It’s thrilling to know this many people are watching your shows or reading your books, to deny that is stupid and silly.”

Utterly binge-able, his tales of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations have found a home on Netflix, neatly curated as the Harlan Coben Collection.

With nine shows and counting, last year’s breakout hit Fool Me Once was Netflix’s most-watched series of 2024. His next adaptation, I Will Find You, was green lit earlier this year.

This year’s offering, Missing You, premiering on New Year’s Day, is likely to be met with similar enthusiasm.

Naturally, the arrival of each series sees Coben’s books shoot back up the charts.

At the start of the year, he simultaneously held the number one and number two spots on the UK paperback bestseller list, with Fool Me Once taking second place only to his newest release, I Will Find You.

He had worked with other streamers including Amazon, Apple and MGM International, and made his first film in France with Canal+, but it’s a truly global reach he is after.

With more than 280 million subscribers in over 290 countries, Netflix feels like a natural choice.

The Netflix ‘misnomer’

Coben’s TV deal with the streaming giant (signed in 2018 on a five-year basis and extended by four years in 2022) seems a sure step to that “bigger audience” he craves.

Widely reported to have been a 14-series deal, Coben says that’s wrong, clarifying: “Netflix and I just agreed to make a lot of shows together.”

He says the “misnomer” is down to the number of novels available when he signed the deal, with no specific number stipulated.

He has calculated there will be 12 shows either released or announced by the end of 2025 and hopes the end result will be “more than 14”.

Safe (2018) was the first Coben production, followed by The Stranger (2020), Stay Close (2022), Fool Me Once (2023) and now Missing You.

Meanwhile, Polish shows The Woods and Hold Tight premiered on Netflix in 2020 and 2022 respectively, while Spanish production The Innocent and French production Gone For Good both landed in 2021.

A flat next door to Yoko Ono

One of the few American novelists to sell more books overseas than in his home country, Coben says a potential US production is also in discussion.

It’s all great exposure for an author already on many people’s bookshelves.

Reported to have been a multi-million-pound deal, Coben won’t talk money but insists his Netflix handshake hasn’t been a career game-changer.

He said: “My real life is – I don’t use the word dull – but it’s fairly ordinary. I have four kids that are now all grown. I’m first and foremost a father.

“I still live in the same place, so my everyday life hasn’t really changed much.”

London-born screenwriter Victoria Asare-Archer, lead writer on Missing You, got to witness Coben’s day-to-day firsthand, flying out to meet him in his Manhattan apartment – the Dakota building – famous for previously being the home of Beatle John Lennon.

Coben has a family house in his home state of New Jersey too, but as Asare-Archer says: “Not many people have a working flat which is next door to Yoko Ono.“

The screenwriter says she enjoyed dipping her toe into Coben’s “very interesting, glamorous life”, albeit “very briefly.”

And more glamour is in the works, with Coben co-writing a novel with Hollywood actress Reese Wetherspoon, which is due out next autumn.

‘ A tiny, tiny detail you might not have thought about’

Lead actress in his latest offering, Rosalind Eleazar, calls Coben “an extraordinary writer” and “wonderful human being”.

Playing DI Kat Donovan in Missing You, she said: “I could text him at any point if I had a query over Kat’s journey.”

Eleazar tells Sky News: “He’s just so good at creating dramas that are suspenseful. He takes you up the wrong avenue with all these twists and turns, but at the same time, his characters are relatable.”

One of the stars of Apple TV+ hit Slow Horses, by crime writer Mick Herron, Eleazar says she feels “lucky to have worked with two fantastic authors who are in the same genre, but at the opposite ends of the spectrum”.

For such esteemed writers to hand over their work to a team of TV folk, is of course a big deal.

Coben admits: “I have a lot of control and I have a lot of power. But when you’re used to being the novelist who has all of the power and all the say, it doesn’t seem like a lot.”

Describing Coben as “a great resource,” Asare-Archer explains: “He’s spent seven months looking at every detail about how to find that one fingerprint or one tiny detail… [He’d say things like] ‘If you change this, then page 69 will be harder to pull off,’ because of this tiny, tiny thing that you might not have thought about.”

‘If it wasn’t for him, I might not be a writer’

As for his skill as an author, she says: “Harlan’s a master at taking your hand leading you to the top of the roller coaster, making you feel safe. And then he pushes you off and sends you on this crazy journey.”

Long a fan of his work, she grew up reading Coben’s books: “I was a library kid, I spent all my time in the library… There’s an argument that if it wasn’t for him, maybe I wouldn’t be a writer.”

Set in an unnamed area in the north of England, and shot in Manchester, it was Asare-Archer’s job to transport the story from New York City to the UK.

Eleazar says while the show somehow felt like a “Manchester project” the universal subject matter meant “it could be put anywhere”.

‘Our lucky underpants’

Of course, with the TV adaptations, there’s the Richard Armitage factor too.

The Leicester-born star has had roles in four of Coben’s projects, and the pair have become friends, even spending this Thanksgiving together at the author’s flat.

Eleazar calls Armitage “the veteran,” while Asare-Archer jokes: “I’m not sure you could have a set with him not being on it. I think he’s obligatory.”

Coben reveals Armitage’s repeat appearances “started off as a sort of a challenge” following his first gig in The Stranger, playing a family man who makes a shocking claim about his wife.

Buoyed by the warm reception, Netflix suggested Armitage return for Stay Closer, in a very different role, playing a loner with an unexpected past.

Always keen to “do something completely different” Coben says Armitage “calls himself, our ‘lucky underpants'”, adding “I wouldn’t quite go that far, but [I always think], ‘Can we find a role for Richard where you won’t think, ‘It’s the guy from the Stranger?'”

‘Always creating mysteries’

A writer himself (Armitage has one crime novel out, a second out next year), Asare-Archer says Armitage’s “great story brain” also made him invaluable on set.

She says: “At one point he pointed out just one tiny forensic detail in a scene he’s not even in, and it was like, ‘Damn, that’s a good point’… He was great to have a board.“

Back in 2006, Coben made a brief cameo appearance playing a bartender in his French adaptation Tell No One. Can we expect to see him in Missing You?

“Yes and no,” he teases.

“You pay attention, you’ll definitely see me in it. It’s how you see me that’s interesting.”

All five episodes of Missing You are streaming on Netflix now. Harlan Coben’s next book, Nobody’s Fool, is out in March.