Fool Me Once, in which Michelle Keegan plays a woman coming to terms with the brutal murder of her husband, has been an absolute monster of a hit series for Netflix. The show, adapted from the Harlan Coben thriller of the same name, has now spent two weeks as the streamer’s biggest series in the world, racking up more than 391 million hours viewed — and it’s currently a Top 10 Netflix series in 91 countries. And on the heels of that success, the streaming giant has gone ahead and shared some news that will no doubt thrill Coben’s legion of fans.
Two more of his books are getting a limited series treatment from Netflix. They include Missing You, which will begin production this spring, which will then be followed by Run Away. The first, published in 2014, is about a body count connected to an online dating site.
As for Run Away, published in 2019, its official book summary is as follows: “You’ve lost your daughter. She’s addicted to drugs and to an abusive boyfriend. And she’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to be found. Then, by chance, you see her playing guitar in Central Park. But she’s not the girl you remember. This woman is living on the edge, frightened, and clearly in trouble. You don’t stop to think. You approach her, beg her to come home.
“She runs. And you do the only thing a parent can do: you follow her into a dark and dangerous world you never knew existed. Before you know it, both your family and your life are on the line. And in order to protect your daughter from the evils of that world, you must face them head on.”
Fool Me Once, meanwhile, marks the eighth collaboration between Coben and Netflix, which has turned several other stories from him into series (like Safe, The Stranger, and Stay Close). His books are the kind of pulpy page-turners that you find in airport bookstores — which is to say, predictable even in their unpredictability.
Even when he presents you with a new story, new stakes, and new characters, you can kind of guess where everything is headed especially if you’ve been reading his work for a while now. Which doesn’t have to be a criticism; for his fans, the stories and Netflix series are comfortable exciting, even in their familiarity.
