Risen again?

Bill Nighy heads this eerie new Harlan Coben thriller which leaves viewers guessing what is real and what isn't

- WORDS: LAURA CARRENO-MÜLLER

Harlan Coben's new horror-thriller series Lazarus is his most personal work to date — drawing on his own personal trauma.

"I lost my father at a fairly young age," he says, "I've dealt with it in a lot of stories but in this one, it's directly."

The six-part mystery follows

Dr Joel Lazarus, a forensic psychologist whose life crumbles after his father’s sudden death. Joel returns home to settle his affairs and finds a cryptic suicide note — only to be haunted by ghosts from the past. Secrets quickly unravel and Joel is forced to confront the truth about his family. “When we lose somebody, we all have hope of, one day, seeing them again,” says Harlan, 63. “That's a lot of what the story really is.”

Bill Nighy stars as Doctor Lazarus, Joel's enigmatic father and, for Harlan, the casting couldn’t have been more perfect. “This is the first time I ever specifically pictured someone while writing the story,” he says. “I specifically pictured Bill Nighy. We couldn't imagine, not in our wildest dreams, that he would say yes. I screamed like a little baby.”