The Stranger: Harlan Coben’s guessing game is fun for us — but bad for a doting dad in distress

Harlan Coben is in the front rank of second-rate thriller writers.

His stories begin so well, launching his protagonists into an inexplicable but compelling plight, one that seems, moreover, intriguingly connected to a contemporary social problem. You’re hooked. Each chapter ends with a twist, a cliffhanger or a shock. Just when your interest begins to flag, an intriguing new character or alarming subplot arrives.

These stories are so well constructed and paced. They grab you by the simple technique of denying you the information you need to understand what is happening.

First-rate thriller writer Lee Child once commended this approach to me thus: “You ask or imply a question at the beginning of the book and you absolutely self-consciously withhold the answer. It does feel cheap and meretricious but it absolutely works.”

The problem is that, when the solution is finally disclosed, you want it to be satisfying and coherent, intrinsic to the theme of the story. In Coben’s novels, it rarely is. You often end up with a surprisingly humdrum, irrelevant and implausible explanation of the exciting events — such a disappointment.

The Stranger is a major new offering from Manchester-based Red Production Company, written by Danny Brocklehurst, working again with Coben, as they did with Safe in 2018. That series was an entirely original story but The Stranger is an adaptation of a 2015 novel.

Set in “Cedarfield”, an expensive suburb in New Jersey, a key part of its plot involved the local high school lacrosse team. Now that’s been converted to Manchester and thereabouts — and lacrosse replaced with football. Much else has been altered, enhanced to fill an eight-hour run. The Stranger is now female (super-glamorous Hannah John-Kamen). There’s a lot more emphasis on the kids (a druggy rave results in a decapitated alpaca). Casting is much more diverse and new characters have been added.

Yet the original hook remains. Successful lawyer and devoted family man Adam Price (Richard Armitage, Thorin Oakenshield in the Hobbit), is approached while watching his teenage sons play footie by this weirdly confident Stranger.

She says to him: “You didn’t have to stay with her, you know.” His wife Corinne (Dervla Kirwan) was lying when she told him two years ago that she was pregnant and then had lost the baby. Corinne was faking it. She was never pregnant.

“You should be thanking me, because now you know she’s a liar.” If he needs proof, he should check their joint credit card bill for a payment to “Novelty Funsy”. And probably run DNA tests on their two boys. Then the Stranger vanishes.

Heck! The ultimate nightmare for a doting dad and hubbie. When Adam investigates, he finds it’s true. He confronts Corinne, she stalls him. “I need some time.” “I just need you to tell me the truth!” “And I will, I promise, just not right now,” Corinne says, as much in the interests of suspense-management as anything else. Then she too disappears.

Meanwhile adorable Ds Johanna Griffin (Siobhan Finneran, such a great ’tec) is getting involved, initially through investigating that alpaca massacre. But then, bit of a coincidence, her best friend Heidi (Jennifer Saunders playing it straight) is approached by the Stranger and told a mortifying family secret too. Worse, much worse, follows.