Netflix’s New Harlan Coben Thriller Is Breaking With Tradition

Ever since he led the cast of 2020’s The Stranger, actor Richard Armitage has become as much part of Netflix’s UK-set Harlan Coben novel adaptations as long-buried secrets and marble kitchen islands. The Hobbit star has so far played a lawyer, a photographer, a big-pharma millionaire, and a police detective across four thriller series The Stranger, Stay Close, Fool Me Once and Missing You.

So, who’s he playing in the next one? Nobody.

Next up for Quay Street Productions’ Harlan Coben series for Netflix is Run Away, the story of a father’s search for his troubled missing daughter. A month ago, you’d have put any money on the lead character of Simon being played by Armitage, but instead the role had gone to fellow The Hobbit actor James Nesbitt.

Harlan Coben himself broke the news speaking to Sky earlier this month when asked about working with Armitage, who has become a friend of Coben and according to the novelist, joined his family for Thanksgiving 2024: “He won’t be in the next one by the way, so we’re breaking our cycle but it’s been great to work with him and I’d love to work with him again.”

“He calls himself our lucky underpants. I wouldn’t quite go that far, but it’s ‘can we find a role for Richard where you won’t think oh, it’s the guy from The Stranger’, it has to be something that he disappears into. Big, small, he doesn’t care.”

Armitage’s second novel The Cut, following on from his thriller debut Geneva, will be published by Faber in August 2025, so perhaps he’s been keeping busy at the keyboard instead of in front of the cameras. His name was also not among those announced for the second series of ITV action-thriller Red Eye.

Run Away, which is adapted from the 2019 novel of the same name, will mark James Nesbitt’s third role in a Quay Street’s Netflix Harlan Coben series. He first appeared in 2021’s Stay Close as a detective sergeant investigating the disappearance of multiple men over several years, and later popped up as an art-loving crime lord in 2025’s Missing You.

Nesbitt will be joined in Run Away by Gavin & Stacey’s Ruth Jones, Good Will Hunting’s Minnie Driver, Gangs of London’s Lucian Msamati, Big Boys’s Jon Pointing, Wolf Hall’s Ellie de Lange, Friday Night Dinner’s Tracy-Ann Oberman, Ted Lasso’s Annette Badland, Doctor Who’s Ingrid Oliver, The Couple Next Door’s Alfred Enoch, and more.

The new series is filming now in and around Manchester and the North West. In excellent news for fans of these twist-filled, ludicrous yet addictive thrillers, the episode count for Run Away has gone back up to the usual eight, instead of the mere five they had for Missing You, which resulted in a rushed series with underdeveloped supporting roles.

As usual, the action will be translated from the US to the UK, and though no official release date has been announced, we can expect this one to land on Netflix on January 1, 2026 in its traditional New Year’s Day binge slot.

Here’s Run Away’s official synopsis:

Simon had the perfect life: loving wife and kids, great job, beautiful home. But then his eldest daughter Paige ran away and everything fell apart. So now when he finds her, vulnerable and strung out on drugs in a city park, he finally has the chance to bring his little girl home. But it turns out she’s not alone, and an argument escalates into shocking violence. In the aftermath, Simon loses his daughter all over again, and his search to find her will take him into a dangerous underworld, revealing deep secrets that could tear his family apart forever.

The Stranger, Stay Close, Fool Me Once and Missing You are streaming now on Netflix.

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