The murder mystery genre always has a certain allure to it. You might be thinking: there are only so many ways a clever bad guy can outrun detectives who always seem to be one step behind. But that’s where Harlan Coben comes in.
Harlan Coben is a murder mystery author, who has seemingly perfected the art, mastering the disappearing people, haunting secrets, innocent façade and mysterious deaths concoction. Nine of his books have been converted into limited series in both English and Spanish and he even serves as an executive producer on them. And after watching three of these series on Netflix—Safe, The Stranger and Stay Close—I completely understand the hype.
I was introduced to Harlan Coben through the recent hit Stay Close, where mother and soon-to-be-married Megan Pierce must deal with her past catching up to her. In parallel, detectives in the town try to solve the case of a missing man, last seen in the woods near Vipers club. Though I found myself screaming at some of the more bizarre characters at points, they were intriguing enough to keep me watching.
After finishing the show in a matter of days, Netflix recommended Safe to me. Here, widowed Tom Delaney’s daughter and her boyfriend go missing, and he and the police comb unravel the secrets of the gated community he lives in to find them. Safe is unique out of the three because of its instances of comedic irony, which seems to make the characters more relatable and human. It forces you to become aware of the juxtaposition of the gated community: why is there such a big mystery in a place designed to keep you safe inside?
My favorite series was The Stranger, which came out second on Netflix, but I watched it last. The Stranger follows family man Adam Price as a stranger reveals a secret about his wife to him, unraveling everything about his perfect world. This stranger seems to know more about his life than himself, and it makes the viewer question everything they have been shown and contemplate who Adam can really trust.
All three of these series are only eight episodes long, making them incredibly easy to binge. And what really hooks you to them is that every single character has a secret. This forces well-developed characters and the viewer constantly being drawn into them. You have to keep track of everything the show gives you because most people have something to hide. But because of this, everyone also appears guilty.
Every episode will leave you more and more confused because little unrelated clues keep building up. And I will warn you: it may frustrate you when regular people seem to be doing the job better than the police, but it always makes sense at the end. And when it does, it is so so worth it.