Review: ‘Missing You’ Grabs You for a Manchester-based Mystery and Quick Binge

***Caution. Spoilers ahead***

I’m a sucker for any Harlan Coben mystery adaption, and Missing You was no exception despite not being as strong as some of the other limited series based on his books. The show was green-lit for a New Year’s Day release, I’m assuming, due to the surprising smash success of Fool Me Once, a Harlan Coben adaptation released just as last year began, and Stay Close, released on New Year’s Eve 2021. 

Missing You is set in England, specifically Manchester. It marks the fifth England-based Coben adaptation, with others set in France, Spain, and two in Poland. The author’s books, including this one, are reliably set in his native New Jersey or New York. Perhaps by Netflix’s design or in concert with Coben, who consults with the streamer, they thought European settings would draw European subscribers while still roping in Coben’s North American readers. 

Our main character is Kat Donovan (played by Rosalind Eleazar, Louisa in Slow Horses). She’s a Manchester Detective Inspector who’d given up on love after being ghosted by her fiancé Josh 11 years ago shortly after her father was murdered (not a very supportive move, Josh!). But urged on by a friend, she dives back in and signs up for a dating app called Melody Cupid that matches dates based on musical taste. Who does she find while scrolling the app but Josh, who must have some nerve showing his face in such a discoverable place. Nevertheless, she attempts to match with him. He soon rebuffs her, typing in the app that it isn’t such a good idea that they reconnect. 

Meanwhile, Kat learns that Monte LeBurne (played by Marc Warren, who appeared in the Coben adaptation Safe) a local hood who murdered her father, is dying from a fast-moving cancer. She goes to visit him in prison and confronts him about his motive for the killing. He behaves like a total prick, but the all too sympathetic prison nurse conveniently offers up that she’ll drug him and get him to “sing.” Under the medication, LeBurne – who thinks he’s talking to his sister – offers up that he didn’t kill Clint Donovan, but accepted money to take the wrap because he was going down for two other murders anyway. Whoa! Then, from the prison parking lot, a private investigator friend of Kat’s, Stacey (The Decameron’s Jessica Plummer), calls her to say she’s pulled prison records and found that Josh visited LeBurne just before he disappeared. What a jerk. And why? Now she really has to find him to get some answers. 

Kat keeps her colleagues informed of the matter, which includes her deputy, Nia, a new forensic tech expert, Charlie, and her boss, Detective Chief Inspector Ellis Stagger (played by Richard Armitage, making his fourth appearance in a Harlan Coben adaptation. He must be a fan). Stacey, the p.i., is a friend from within the last decade who never knew Josh but is game to help. Another friend, Aqua, was Josh’s flatmate for a while, and she is curious about these events, but her body language and facial expressions suggest she’s hiding something. Same with DCI Stagger, who seems to want Kat only so much on the manhunt for her former flame and focused on another missing person’s case. 

This brings us to Rishi Magari, who we see early in E1, somewhat disheveled and hobbled, and with bound hands, trying to make what appears to be an escape from a rural area. He’s no match for a man who hunts him down in a tractor and cattle prods him. He is made to change into an orange jumper and is put into some stall, with his bound hands hanging above his head. 

Kat and her team check a small cottage Rishi had rented for two and find some unopened champagne and lingerie for his expected guest, who never arrived. Is there a chance Rishi met his expected date on Melody Cupid? And if so, was he lured to this beauty by a bogus app? And if the app is a scam, what’s Josh doing on it?

Another party enters the fray in E2, a very particular dog breeder named Titus who has some questionable henchmen working for him. We see Titus in his office hosting a couple considering adopting a dog. When the woman asks if they can rename the dog “Stuffy,” Titus’s demeanor changes into disgust. He then pulls out photographic evidence – for her husband to see – of the woman kissing another man. What kind of psycho do you have to be to load up on dirt about potential clients? Needless to say, they don’t get the dog. 

We also find Kat returning to a home invasion, where we awkwardly meet Brendan Fells. Brendan broke in desperate for Kat’s help because he says his mother, Dana, has begun dating a new man on the app – Josh – and that Josh has taken her off to Costa Rica. Brendan fears his mother is a mark for Josh, and he’s desperate to reach her but can’t. So did Kat misread Josh entirely while falling in love more than a decade ago? Or is something else afoot?

I can’t tell you more without spoiling the enjoyable twists, turns, and tie-ins – along with new information that always arrives late – of a classic Harlan Coben adaptation. You’ll learn more about Kat’s dad, Clint, and a local crime boss, Dominic Calligan (played by familiar Irish actor James Nesbit, who was also in Stay Close), and whether Brendan can expect to be reunited with his mother. You’ll also understand how Titus fits in and what a sick, merciless game he’s really playing.

Enjoy it over a few nights or binge on an entire weekend afternoon. And that’s What Todd’s Watching.