A lever groans, a pipe judders and thunk; another length of premium-grade bunkum is extruded from the Harlan Coben Industrial Adaptation Complex™. This particular emission – an eight-part assemblage of fists and mumbling entitled I Will Find You – is the 13th of Coben’s novels to have been processed by Netflix as part of a 14-book deal. Which means – the pulse quickens – there is now just one more to go. On Netflix, at least. The author’s ongoing deal with Amazon suggests we could be trapped in an ever-spiralling cycle of preposterous thrillers for eternity. May God have mercy on our souls.
Helpfully, Netflix has titled its cluster of adaptations “The Harlan Coben Collection”, which makes them sound like the type of ceramic figurines advertised at the back of Sunday supplements: Regency belles, say, or dogs dressed as fictional detectives. Stun your family by collecting them all! Alternatively, watch just one – any one – of these adaptations and relax in the knowledge that you have now in effect seen them all, and thus need never again subject yourself to the sight of hitherto respectable actors remaining straight-faced while delivering lines of the “The past never changes. Until one day it does” genus.
