MIKE WARD’S BIG STREAM Dark secrets of gripping thriller

FRESH START FEARS

STAY CLOSE (Netflix from Friday) ★★★★

HARLAN Coben’s thrillers rarely seem to worry much about being plausible.

But who cares, when, like this new eightparter, they get you in their grip in next to no time?

Cush Jumbo plays mum-of-three Megan, about to get married but clearly hiding some kind of terrible secret.

Sarah Parish plays her old friend Lorraine, who seems to have troubles of her own. For whatever reason, Lorraine is unwilling to let Megan simply start afresh.

Meanwhile, James Nesbitt plays a police officer (of course he does), obsessed with a missing person’s case he failed to solve years ago.

And Richard Armitage is an ex-war photographer whose memory appears to be shot to ribbons, coming back to him only in harrowing flashbacks.

So, yes, everyone here has a dark history. That’s pretty clear from the start.

But it’s only as the drama unfolds, and we see the way their stories interlink, that we learn why their past still haunts them – and threatens to ruin their lives.