Harlan Coben has become one of Netflix’s most dependable sources of fast-moving crime mysteries, but his latest thriller is proving far more divisive than some of his biggest recent hits.

I Will Find You stars Sam Worthington as David, a father serving time in prison after being convicted of murdering his own son.

For David, the case appears to be over. His child is dead, he has been found responsible, and his life has collapsed around him.

Then his sister-in-law arrives with evidence capable of changing everything.

She believes the boy may still be alive.

That revelation launches another characteristically twist-heavy Coben mystery, although critics are split over whether the familiar formula remains as effective this time around.

A father convicted of killing his son

Worthington, best known for the Avatar films, plays David, whose situation initially appears almost impossible to escape.

He has been convicted of murdering his son Matthew and is serving his sentence behind bars.

But one person has never accepted his guilt.

Rachel, David’s sister-in-law, is played by Britt Lower. An investigative journalist, she has continued digging into what happened even while David has remained imprisoned.

Her investigation eventually produces an extraordinary piece of evidence suggesting Matthew could still be alive.

If the evidence is genuine, David has not only been imprisoned for a murder he did not commit — the son everyone believes he killed may be somewhere waiting to be found.

David consequently makes a drastic decision.

He breaks out of prison.

The search becomes bigger than one missing child

Freedom does not make David’s task any easier.

Now a fugitive, he must search for Matthew while avoiding the law enforcement officers determined to recapture him.

His investigation also brings him into conflict with mysterious organizations and forces connected to the wider conspiracy.

It is territory that will immediately feel familiar to longtime Coben viewers: an apparently settled crime suddenly reopened, buried secrets, people who may not be who they appear to be and a central character forced into increasingly desperate decisions as another revelation changes the story.

Netflix currently has more than 10 Coben shows available to stream, and many have become major audience successes shortly after release.

But that familiarity is also behind some of the criticism directed at I Will Find You.

Critics are divided

The series debuted with a 71 per cent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.

While hardly disastrous, that reception places it below some of Coben’s stronger recent performers and makes it his lowest-rated series of the year following successes including Run Away.

Several reviewers have argued that the problem is not necessarily the mystery itself but the characters surrounding it.

Collider critic Taylor Gates felt that the show relies too heavily on familiar crime-thriller archetypes, including the determined reporter, questionable benefactor and rogue police officer.

She argued that this creates a sense of “genericness,” making some of the characters feel as though audiences have encountered versions of them in numerous previous thrillers.

Pacing has also attracted criticism.

Yet even reviewers who identified those weaknesses acknowledged that the central mystery can be difficult to abandon once it gets moving.

The mystery still has one major strength

ScreenRant critic Cher Thompson praised the series for making an effort to ensure its complicated mystery ultimately fits together.

According to Thompson, the story works towards a conclusion that makes sense rather than simply piling twists on top of twists without a satisfying resolution.

That could matter enormously for Coben fans.

His adaptations frequently depend on escalating revelations, meaning the eventual explanation has to justify the hours viewers have spent trying to unravel the mystery.

The Daily Beast’s Nick Schager offered a less flattering but equally revealing assessment, comparing the experience to junk food that keeps making audiences want another serving.

It is perhaps an appropriate description of the appeal that has made Coben such a prolific streaming presence.

Even when critics find faults, the combination of short episodes, cliffhangers, secrets and constant reversals can make stopping difficult.

Another unmistakably Harlan Coben mystery

For viewers already familiar with Coben’s adaptations, I Will Find You is unlikely to feel like a radical reinvention.

Instead, it delivers many of the ingredients that have turned his novels into streaming staples.

There is a family tragedy at the centre.

There is evidence suggesting the accepted version of events may be completely wrong.

There is an ordinary person pushed into extraordinary circumstances.

And there is a mystery that keeps expanding as the protagonist gets closer to the truth.

This time, the emotional hook is particularly brutal: a father convicted of murdering his child suddenly discovering that the boy might never have died at all.

Whether the series does enough with that premise has divided reviewers.

But for viewers who enjoy Coben precisely because they know the kind of rollercoaster they are getting, the 71 per cent score may matter considerably less than one question driving the entire story:

If Matthew is alive, where has he been all this time?

All episodes of I Will Find You are available to stream on Netflix.