Harlan Coben is doing anything but slowing down. In addition to his 35 novels and memoir, he’s spearheaded over 13 adaptations of his mysteries over at Netflix and delved into true crime with CBS’s “Harlan Coben’s Final Twist.” It’s a level of volume matched by some of TV’s biggest producers, but Coben wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’ve spent most of my life alone in a room, writing novels and I still enjoy that, but it’s also been fun to get out of that room and to work with others,” Coben told TheWrap, likening his solo wins to that of a tennis player, celebrating alone on the tennis court.
“When you write the novel with a TV series, I feel like I’m captain of a World Cup team and I don’t care who scores,” he continued. “I don’t care how we win. As long as we win, I want you all to go home and get big Premier League contracts, and I want to celebrate all of us together.”
His most recent win came from massive viewership for his Netflix adaptation of “I Will Find You,” which scored a cumulative 120.8 million views within its first 90 days, landing as Netflix’s No. 5 most-watched English-language series of all time.
Coben admits that magnitude of an audience is “mind-blowing,” and has been texting with the stars of the thriller series to celebrate its success. “It’s almost too much to comprehend,” he said. “I’m grateful that we’re able to do that.”
And while some authors might prefer taking a backseat during the adaptation process, Coben has taken a different route, noting that he made it clear from the start he’d like to be and can be successful being “heavily involved.”
“I don’t want to be the author who says, ‘Oh, they ruined it’ … if you don’t like it, it’s me,” he said. “I know some authors who just have no interest in that, and that’s fine. They’re focusing on their books and and that’s what I think is probably a very, very wise route. I tried that route; it didn’t really work for me. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t care.”
That means Coben’s days are filled with his own novel writing, reviewing scripts for his TV adaptations, visiting set and making media appearances, all jumbled into various time blocks.
“I don’t know how I do it, but it’s what I love to do,” Coben said. “I think about it all the time. It’s the only thing that I’m good at. It’s my hobby and my job, and so and I take it quite seriously.”
Coben’s TV footprint is only expanding as he debuts the second season of true crime series “Harlan Coben’s Final Twist,” which the author strived to improve once CBS greenlit more episodes. Season 2 opens by investigating the story of Betsy Faria’s murder, which contains both the twists and turns as well as the heart that made Coben want to dive into true crime.
“It’s crazier probably than any story I could come up with … if I had written that as a novel or a limited series, you would probably … smash the TV over my head like, ‘Oh come on, that can’t happen.’ I get those emails all the time now,” Coben said. “The difference is … fiction has to follow certain rules. Reality doesn’t. That story doesn’t follow any rules at all.”
But what sets “Final Twist” — which Coben chooses to call the series because “it’s very hard for me to say my own name without sounding like an idiot” — apart from other true crime is Coben’s own expert commentary. Coben steps in to narrate a defining moment in the Faria case, which revealed that 9-1-1 calls begin recording even before an operator picks up — a fact that opened the case wide open that even Coben wasn’t aware of.
Moments like that start turning the gears in Coben’s head for his next story, but he admits his mind works like that already.
“When I’m walking down the street and I see somebody walking, I’m thinking, ‘How can I put this guy’s hat in the book?’ ” he said, noting that it’s skill in both empathy and storytelling. “Every person you see in the street has hopes and dreams — small thing, but it makes the person human … it makes you, I think, maybe a little bit more of an empathetic human being, and certainly makes you more of an interesting creator, artist, storyteller.”
Coben has been unpacking his own creative process in his memoir, “Plot Twist: Life, Craft, and the Messy First Draft,” which released in September. Even the process of writing it, he admits, was therapeutic as he began connecting the origins of what’s made it into his work.
“I’ve always been sort of a writer who says, ‘Oh, I just make it all up.’ And then I realized, no, every part of it is something from my real life, crimes that happened in my childhood, weird stuff that happened in my childhood,” Coben said. “That’s why it’s also a memoir. It really can’t help but be a memoir.”
Coben hopes “Plot Twist” encourages readers to think more like an artist or a writer, and understand that it’s never too late to start. “I’m hoping it’ll also make people create,” he said. “I think we’re not just meant to consume; we’re all meant to create.”
Next up for Coben is Netflix’s “Myron Bolitar,” the TV adaptation of Coben’s 12-novel thriller series hailing from David E. Kelley and Kyle Long and the first project to aimed to become an ongoing series.
“It’s been a really interesting meld, where the standalones are a pure mystery-driven — this is also about the work placing of the sports world and being a sports agent … [as] Myron’s trying to build up his sports agency,” Coben said, noting the show will embrace workplace elements akin to Kelley’s “Boston Legal” and “Ally McBeal.” “We’re trying to combine those elements, and so I think …. it’ll end up being a very different show than ‘I Will Find You,’ for example.”
As for what else is next for Coben, he’ll probably keep surprising himself, given that he said he would never co-write a novel — which he eventually did with Reese Witherspoon with “Gone Before Goodbye” — and that he would never write a memoir – which he did earlier this year.
“I don’t plan this stuff out. It’s whatever kind of idea comes to me, or comes in front of me, or I see an up an opportunity to do more, do less,” he said. “‘Man plans, God laughs’ is one of my favorite expressions that I’ve used a number of books, and it’s been true for me as well.”
“Harlan Coben’s Final Twist” airs Mondays on CBS and streams the next day on Paramount+.
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