The Stranger is a 2020 British series about a young woman going around revealing everyone’s well-kept secrets, taken from a Harlan Coban novel of the same name.
8 out of 10 stars. It wasn’t the best television but it kept my family glued to their seats for three nights.
There are three murder stories here all connected by the same young stranger out to expose everyone’s secrets.
Storyline 1. A young woman approaches attorney Adam Price and tells him that the pregnancy and miscarriage his wife Corinne had two years ago was fake. He investigates the clues she gives him and discovers it’s true. He confronts Corinne and she disappears the next day.
Storyline 2. Heidi Doyle is approached by the same young woman and told her daughter has been a prostitute for the past year. For 10,000 pounds she won’t expose her. Heidi agrees to pay it and is murdered.
Storyline 3. An old friend and neighbor of Adam’s, Martin Killane, hires him to stop his home from being demolished. When he fails and the home is demolished they discover a dead body inside, that of his wife who everyone thought left him.
Spoilers. There are a lot of red herrings in this series which is one of the reason I never read Harlan Coban’s novels. Plot 1. Adam and Corinne have a neighbor who is also their lawyer and a parent at their kids’ soccer club. He keeps insinuating himself into Adam’s investigation of Corinne and making it appear that she robbed the soccer club and then disappeared. She didn’t. She discovered that he robbed the soccer club and so he killed her. By the end of the series Adam figures it out and forces the neighbor, Doug Tripp, to confess and take him to where he buried Corinne. Then Adam kills him. Plot 2. Heidi’s daughter was actually a prostitute to a well-known businessman who is about to launch a huge investment scheme. The cop, Katz, who invested highly in this scheme can’t afford for this information to come out so he kills Heidi. Since he’s also part of the task force assigned to investigate, he keeps altering evidence to turn the investigation another direction. But Heidi’s best friend, Johanna Griffin, is the cop in charge of the investigation and she eventually figures it out. She also frames Katz for Tripp’s murder so Adam is never accused of the crime. Plot 3. Martin’s wife had been having an affair with his neighbor, Ed Price, who is also Adam’s father. When she tried leaving him and taking their son Chris, Martin killed her, knowing he would never see his son again. He buried her in the walls of the apartment and raised Chris alone. Chris eventually underwent a sex change operation and became the strange young woman who is going around revealing everyone’s secrets. So in storyline 1, she is actually Adam’s half sister. Martin confesses and kills himself to avoid trial.
8 out of 10 stars. Very watchable. Not a fan of Harlan Coban’s writing or stories because he has way too many red herrings, but this was done well. Acting was great. Ending was poetic.
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