• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 4 hours ago

With two series coming one after the other, thriller author Harlan Coben is having a moment on TV.

His new one is “Harlen Coben’s I Will Find You,” adapted from a 2023 novel. It is an eight-part series premiering Thursday on Netflix.

Earlier this year, he hosted his own true-crime docuseries on CBS, “Harlan Coben’s Final Twist.” 

Coben, 64, has written 30 novels and sold an estimated 90 million copies of them. Clearly, he is a name brand who has earned inclusion in these TV titles.

In “I Will Find You,” a man wrongly convicted of the brutal murder of his young son wallows in a Massachusetts penitentiary for five years until information comes his way that his son might not be dead.

But he is a target for a jailhouse murder, which means that the only way he can clear his name is to break out of prison and chase the truth while law enforcement chases him.

Sam Worthington (above photo) plays the con, David Burroughs, as a reluctant tough guy. In one scene in Episode One, he is attacked by a convicted serial killer and almost choked to death. 

In a bit of dark self-referential comedy, we learn that the psycho killer is a graduate of Amherst College, which happens to be Coben’s alma mater.

But Burroughs summons up the strength and willpower to save his own life and beat the man’s face to a bloody pulp.

In many TV shows and movies, such scenes, in which a mild-mannered character who keeps to himself somehow summons up the adrenalin to get the best of someone much tougher than he, are completely far-fetched.

But not in “I Will Find You.” The whole show is made in the tradition of great thrillers -- taut action scenes, exposition that comes naturally and not forced, and a story about a lone man seeking justice according to a self-styled code of honor that is his and his alone.

It is a story that is the stuff of countless pulp novels and hard-boiled movies. “I Will Find You” takes its rightful place among all of them.

In addition to Worthington, the very worthy cast includes Milo Ventimiglia, Madeleine Stowe, Clancy Brown and Chi McBride.

“Harlan Coben’s I Will Find You” starts streaming on Netflix on Thursday, June 18.