Lazarus: The gripping binge-worthy thriller for your January watchlist

While many of Coben’s hits began as novels, Lazarus arrived differently. The idea struck him in a vivid moment after leaving a tennis match.

“I was walking out of playing tennis, and across the street was a psychiatrist’s office where I’d taken my ageing father-in-law when he had severe depression. I started to think, my God, the misery that that office has heard… how it must seep into the walls. Where does it all escape?”

From there, the premise fell into place almost instantly. “Suppose if it does escape someplace. And I have a character who’s a psychiatrist and he dies, and when his son goes in… that misery escapes somehow. I thought of this plot in like five minutes. It was the weirdest thing.”

That image of grief became the seed that grew into Lazarus.

A thriller with more than twists

Coben’s stories are known for their plotting, but for him, the emotion dictates the structure, not the other way around.

“Character is story and story is character. What they go through develops their character, and who they are informs the story.”

For Lazarus, that meant anchoring everything in the relationship between Joel and his father. “This is very much a father-son story and it’s a family tragedy too,” he says. “The world might end up being big, but the actual moments that matter are small.”

Anyone familiar with Coben’s work will recognise the recurring theme of paternal loss. Here, he’s direct about why it continues to shape his writing.

“My dad died young, and I was really close to my dad. It was the most traumatic event in my life. All my books reflect that… a lot of what I do is to live through the stories.”

He describes writing his long-running Myron Bolitar novels: “Myron has this wonderful relationship with his father who’s now in his eighties. I get to live it with Myron. I’m jealous of him on that front.”

Lazarus approaches the question from a different angle – what it would mean to speak to someone you’ve lost, and whether that would be comforting or destabilising.

“What if I could see my father again? What if I could talk to him again? Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? That’s what I was trying to bring together.”

Working with Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy

From the outset, Coben imagined specific actors in the lead roles, something he says was a first for him.

“It’s the first time I ever had this, where from day one I was picturing Sam. I was picturing Bill Nighy in the role of Dr Lazarus. Never thought I’d get him in a million years.”

Their performances, he says, elevate the core of the series. “There’s a lot of great two-handers… watching them on our magnificent sets, it was like watching a play.”

Surprising the audience

Coben knows viewers expect twists from him, but this, he stresses, is only one part of it.

“How can I make a twist that’s going to be new and different yet make sense and have emotional resonance?” he says. “If you don’t care about Lazarus or Dr Lazarus or the other characters, then you’ve had the most expensive car in the world, but it doesn’t have petrol. It’s not going anyplace.”

“ I want you to be enmeshed in this world… but it’s also a story about family. It’s a story about being broken and trying to heal… I want you to enjoy the show. I want it to be a moving story… stir the heart.”