Anyone with a Netflix subscription has probably come across at least one of the 12 Harlan Coben dramas currently available on the service.
The first of Coben’s novels to make the jump to television was 2018’s Safe, which remains one of the better-received entries with a 73 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Two years later, The Stranger arrived, along with the Polish adaptation of The Woods.
More recently, viewers got Missing You, starring Richard Armitage, Adolescence actor Ashley Walters, and Roslind Eleazar.
But if you look back at how these shows have been received, the trend hasn’t exactly been moving upward. Missing You has just a 32 percent Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes and was described as being ‘forgettable’ by The Guardian, while 2024’s Fool Me Once landed a slightly better 45 percent.
Rotten Tomatoes is hardly the final word on quality, and I definitely haven’t made it through every Coben adaptation myself. I enjoyed The Stranger, but some of the later series lost me because they leaned a little too heavily into the melodrama. That said, I Will Find You has restored my confidence in Netflix’s long-running partnership with the author.
One of the biggest differences this time around is location. I Will Find You is set in Boston and New York, which gives it a more distinctly American feel than many of the earlier Netflix adaptations. It is also one of the latest entries in the streamer’s Harlan Coben collection, which now runs to a dozen titles.
The synopsis reads:
“A father imprisoned for his son’s murder receives evidence suggesting his child may be alive, compelling him to escape and uncover the truth.”
There is also a distinctly more American feel to the cast. Severance standout Britt Lower appears alongside Milo Ventimiglia and Gotham actor Erin Richards, while Sam Worthington leads the series as David Burroughs.
It also helps that this cast feels fresh within Coben’s Netflix universe. Earlier shows have often brought back familiar faces. Richard Armitage, for instance, has appeared in four of the writer’s series, while James Nesbitt featured in both Missing You and Stay Close.
Peaky Blinders actor Emmett Scanlan has also shown up in two Coben adaptations.
Worthington is excellent here. Compared with some of the previous adaptations, I Will Find You has the scale and momentum of a big-screen thriller, even though it unfolds across eight episodes instead.
It grabs your attention straight away, which feels increasingly rare. The plot is tense, fast-moving, and full of the kind of misdirection Coben fans will expect. You are never entirely sure where the story is heading until the final pieces click into place in the last episode.
I was fully invested from the moment David Burroughs broke out of prison with help from Warden Phillip Mackenzie, played by Peter Outerbridge. Their connection runs deeper than it first appears, thanks to Mackenzie’s history with David’s father in the police force.
David was convicted of murdering his son, Matthew, five years earlier, but he has never wavered in insisting the boy is still alive.
Although David had always maintained his innocence, he had resigned himself to life behind bars until his ex-sister-in-law Rachel Mills visited him with a recent photograph of a young boy who looked strikingly like Matthew. That discovery is what sets everything in motion and drives David to escape prison in search of the truth.
From there, each episode piles on more revelations, betrayals, and sharp turns. By the time you reach the midway point, the pace is so relentless it almost gives you whiplash.
Put simply, I Will Find You is not the kind of show you can leave running in the background. It demands your full attention, and it rewards it. This is the rare thriller that makes you want to put your phone down rather than check it between scenes.
★★★★
I Will Find You is now streaming on Netflix.