THE MASTER OF SUSPENSE

Harlan Coben is one of the world’s best-selling thriller writers with more than 70 million copies of his 32 books sold. A father of four, with a paediatrician wife, the New Jerseyborn author sets his stories in the suburbia he knows and writes in the coffee bars and delis near his home to keep his tales authentic.

His clout meant the show was, unusually, able to secure the rights to a Bruce Springsteen song. ‘I wrote to him in a way that I knew would appeal to him,’ recalls Harlan. ‘I said, “The kids hate your music” and he obviously thought that was funny because he said yes.’

This is Harlan’s third collaboration with Red Productions, the company behind Happy Valley and Last Tango In Halifax, after mystery series The Five on Sky and Safe on Netflix, and he co-writes with Shameless writer

Danny Brocklehurst.

The Stranger is an adaptation of one of his own books though, while the other two shows were specially written for TV. ‘I love the idea of my books being adapted and becoming something new,’ says Harlan. ‘I know a lot of writers don’t like to let go, but I love it if I trust the people I’m working with. The book is a separate entity, and the actors breathe a different life into my characters.’

Moving the action to the north of England meant they had to get rid of Americanisms in the story. ‘Danny likes to put a line in every show we’ve done where he has someone joking, “Don’t be all American” and you’ll see that in The Stranger,’ says Harlan. ‘We’ve changed lacrosse for football and Danny has also added some references to Take That and One Direction. We also had to take all the guns out – that makes the story quite different.’