The Five, Safe, The Stranger
[Television] Three to binge from Harlan Coben
Harlan Coben is a storyteller and writer built for binge television. Although he is one of the most prolific authors of our generation, writing almost a book a year since 1990, it is his trio of one season murder mysteries that put him way up on my radar.
His current run began with the excellent “The Five” in 2016 about a group of childhood friends who reunite as adults after the DNA of one of a missing child sibling appears at a seemingly unrelated crime scene. 2018’s “Safe” stars Dexter’s Michael C. Hall playing a British surgeon in search of a daughter who has gone missing. His most recent Netflix series, “The Stranger” follows a beautiful stranger wearing a baseball cap who seems to be on a vigilante mission to some ambiguous end.
All of these stories are just complicated enough to keep you binging hard, but not so much that you find yourself constantly rewinding to grab the tiny details if you happen to step away. Each of the three series features a fresh faced cast of largely British actors who seem to nail each character large and small with just the right amount of urgency and charm. That they are all only one season also make a true weekender seem accessible and tempting.
Although I was never a fan of network police procedurals before this modern age of streaming, besides Helen Mirren’s epic “Prime Suspect” series, the tidal wave of great British crime shows has me hooked. “Broadchurch,” “The Fall,” “Marcella,” “Happy Valley,” “We Hunt Together,” and these Coben shows represent how conducive streaming is to the genre. I’m sure I watch way too much TV, but at least the bar has risen to a point where I don’t have to feel much guilt.
