Ten down, four to go. I approach each new adaptation of a Harlan Coben thriller under his 14-book deal with Netflix as a weary traveller on a very long journey – committed to reaching the final destination and grateful every time that we are closer to the end.
It has been a funny old business, this deal. The adaptations have been churned out in a manner reminiscent of the old studio system – fast, efficiently and apparently with any actors free at the moment of casting and with little time to spare for making them stand up to great scrutiny. Or perhaps they are more like the Catherine Cookson dramas that flooded the 90s television schedules and whose formulaic pleasures can still be found when you are off sick, or otherwise in need of comfort (along with the chance to spot now-star actors in embryonic form). Coben’s are darker and more bloody, but the promise is the same: viewers will get exactly what they came for and go away content.
