My only prior exposure to the oeuvre of Harlan Coben had been Guillaume Canet's rather decent adaptation of Tell No One (2006), which led me towards the otherwise avoidable error of attempting to read the source novel.
This five episode show is oddly entertaining, yet unlike any British cop show I have ever seen before. In the book the action apparently takes place in NYC, but has been transferred here to Manchester...a Manchester almost exclusively inhabited by Londoners, leaving the impression that this is some sort of experimental remake of Coronation Street using the cast of Eastenders.
It is basically a soap opera. Characters deliver hackneyed lines of dialogue as the 'dramatic' music swells and the camera is concentrated on the recipient's straining features.
There are two streams of plot, one ludicrous and the other predictable, and a mysterious character with more than a passing resemblance to Lionel Richie who may or may not be the link between the two. (There's also an IT-specialising DI whose narratively non-relevant creepiness seems to belong in a more open-ended format.)
Stop reading here if you abhor spoilers, but this story ultimately hinges on a non-credible cover up by multiple members of the secondary cast, who have spent ages protecting the protagonist from the supposedly destructive consequences of a certain piece of knowledge. It seems that for 11 years she has been more or less happy in her ignorance but suddenly starts pulling the loose thread, but when the dark secret is finally out, she's like 'whatevs', making you think everyone, including the makers of this show, could have saved themselves a whole load of bother.
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