I binged the five episodes of Harlan Coben's Missing You, which just went up on Netflix today. I've watched who knows how many Coben stories on the screen -- if you want an idea of how many, just search on his name on this blog -- and I gotta say, I think Missing You is one his very best. I know I say that about Coben's stories in just about every review of one of Coben's works brought to the screen, but that's because it's true every time I say it.
[And no warning about spoilers ahead, because there won't be any ... ]
First, the stars in this series include Rosalind Eleazar (Slow Horses), Richard Armitage (MI5), and James Nesbitt (Bloodlands), you can't go wrong with that. And every other part in the series is well-acted, too.
Next, the story takes place in the UK. When it comes to police detective stories, you usually can't go wrong with that, either.
The plot is classic Coben -- the series is taken from Coben's 2014 novel of the same name, which takes place in New York, and I haven't read -- with love affairs (frustrated and otherwise), complex parent-child relationships, cops of all ages and both genders, a loathsome villain, cold-blooded killers and killers who don't want to be -- all wrapped up in a plot that's seems so complex as to defy resolution, and yet--
Well, as I said, I don't want to give anything away. I will mention that the story on the screen, whatever it may have been in the novel, is very woke, and that's fine with me. The relationships, apparent and revealed, all make sense, and provide an excellent nesting and motivation for the story.
Last but not least, one of the things I most enjoy about Brit movies and TV series is picking up a phrase or two, the slanger the better, that I didn't know before. Missing You delivers on that score as well, with a phrase for a certain part of the anatomy that was new to me. So hey, I'm happy to say I learned something watching this short series, as well as very much enjoying it, on this first day of 2025
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