I'm a big Harlan Coben fan -- I've given rave reviews here on this blog to 8 of Coben's streaming series since 2017 -- so of course I was going to watch his latest, Lazarus (on Amazon Prime Video) -- and I talked my wife into watching it, too.
Lazarus is somewhat different from Coben's other works. Like them, it's a great whodunnit, that keeps you guessing until the very end about who has killed whom. And the story is so intriguing, that I enjoyed it immensely, even though I half-guessed who one of the worst culprits was. So, in what way was Lazarus different?
Well, the main character, Dr. Joel Lazarus (a psychiatrist, powerfully played by Sam Claflin, who was memorable is Season 5 of Peaky Blinders), sees dead people, aka ghosts. Indeed, one of the other characters (Seth, a detective, well played by David Finn) references the signature line from The Sixth Sense, "I see dead people," as he ridicules Lazarus about his interactions with dead people. This at the very least makes Lazarus an ideal narrative to be released around Halloween.
But -- and this is the closest I'll come to a spoiler -- Lazarus is not really seeing ghosts, he's interacting with these dead people in his head. As we come to learn, Lazarus for a variety of reasons is himself a troubled person, and his character is also an emblem of physician heal thyself.
A real high point of the six-episode limited series is Bill Nighy playing another Lazarus -- Dr. Jonathan Lazarus, also a psychiatrist, Joel's father. Nighy is someone who never disappoints in his acting, and he again comes through with a sterling performance.
As does Harlan Coben once again. I consider him a 100% watch-on-sight creator of great streaming television, and I look forward to seeing his next venture.
See my reviews of other Harlan Coben streaming series: No Second Chance ... Safe ... The Stranger ... The Five ... The Innocent ... Shelter ... Fool Me Once ... Missing You
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