There's no doubt that Harlan Coben is the master of twisty thrillers, with his incredible book-to-screen adaptations like The Stranger and Stay Close receiving critical acclaim. In fact, his most recent TV project Fool Me Once became one of Netflix's most popular shows of all time.
After the announcement that Netflix would be turning two more Harlan Coben novels into series, his next mystery hit will finally arrived in the form of Missing You on January 1, 2025. Based on Coben’s novel of the same name, Missing You will not only mark another collaboration between him and one of the best streaming services, but also writer Victoria Asare-Archer.
Asare-Archer knows what it takes to make a truly gripping Coben series as she previously wrote two episodes of the hugely successful Stay Close, which was the most watched English language show worldwide on Netflix in January 2022. Now, she's the lead writer and executive producer on Coben's ninth on-screen adaptation Missing You.
Missing You tells the story of detective Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar) whose world comes crashing down when she finds her estranged fiancé Josh (Ashley Walters) on a dating app after vanishing 11 years earlier. This unexpected reappearance leads Kat to reopen the unsolved mystery surrounding her father's murder, which poses the question: is there a connection between her fiancé's disappearance and her father’s death?
Expect the unexpected
Coben’s mystery-thriller novels have been the keystone for a number of the best Netflix shows and are universally loved for his signature twists and turns that have you guessing until the very end.
While we can still expect all the jaw-dropping surprises from a typical Coben series, creator Asare-Archer revealed that Missing You is different from the rest of as it's the most emotional adaptation yet.
"I think the big difference with this is that it is emphatically a love story, like it's much more emotional than the others in the sense of it's a story about a detective who's lost her fiancé, lost her father, and she's completely driven by what those losses do to her. But it's a very loving, warm, funny series about love," she told me. "All of these big twists and turns come from the character's desperate pursuits of trying to protect someone they love, find someone they love, honor someone they love. And it's that kind of desperation that love brings to us all. So it's very much a love story, which I don't think we've seen before in any of our series."
Coben's writing thrives on-screen with the whodunnit trope proving to be the foundation of binge-watching. I mean, we've all involuntarily clicked on the 'Next Episode' button when we're trying to work out a murderer's identity or expose corrupt characters? Right?
From unsolved murders to vanishing kids, the Coben TV universe all play with the classic captivating mystery tropes of deception and danger. So we know what sort of gasp-inducing bombshells are in store when we press play on our remote – but while they're alike in that way, Missing You is unalike in many others.
Asare-Archer said: "All of the other series have a similar DNA in that we all know what we're going to expect from the world overall, but they all feel different and this is very much the love story. This is a love story about a woman's desperate search for her past and how it changes us. I think it feels just a lot more intense in a way. It's much shorter, so it's five episodes around one character."
Adapting novels does come with its challenges
Asare-Archer was excited about adapting another Coben series for Netflix, having grown up reading his books. "It was a bit of a dream for me. It just felt like there's a real synergy between mine and Harlan's writing styles. It's kind of being given the keys to the Lamborghini and asked to take over the whole thing, which is pretty incredible. It was a real thrill," she gushed.
However, adapting novels does come with its challenges, especially when you're taking such a well-loved book and creating something new out of it. For Missing You in particular, the difficult aspect was taking a novel that is very internal and translating it onto the small screen.
Asare-Archer explained: "Adapting novels is always going to be tricky in the sense of the different art forms, but particularly with this novel, it's all told from the point of view of one character, and it's very, very internal, very, very thoughtful. There's a lot of interior monologue and dialogue and thought, and really taking someone's thoughts and feelings and transforming that into drama on the screen is just such a tricky trial and a really good one.
"But it's kind of finding a way to take what's going on in our heart and our mind and turn it on to action and make it something that the audience really understands. That was definitely tricky with this book, because it's the book that's the most internal and most thoughtful, but then it makes it the most emotional of the series we've done."
Future projects
With this being Asare-Archer's second Coben project, could there be any more potential future adaptations? Well, she remained coy about the question, but there is a glimmer of hope as she said: "Time will tell, we’ll see."
One thing's for sure though is that Asare-Archer has found her calling when it comes to Coben thrillers. "I've realized my sweet spot is romantic thrillers. Give me a love story, someone with a gun," and I can't wait to see her take aim at what she does next.
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