Here's how the Netflix series The Stranger differs from the original Harlan Coben novel

Netflix, the undisputed kings of binge-able TV, gave viewers a brand new show to obsess over at the start of 2020 with the release of eight-part series The Stranger.

The psychological thriller tells the story of Adam Price (Richard Armitage) whose orderly family life is thrown into disarray when an unknown woman (Hannah John-Kamen) tells him a secret about his wife and children.

We don’t know who she is, what she wants, or how she knows what she knows. And the further Adam takes the path The Stranger has set him on, the darker things get.

Adapted from Harlan Coben’s 2015 novel of the same name, the Netflix series makes a few key changes to bring the book to the screen. Here’s what you need to know.

A strange woman comes along to whisper in Adam's ear, and his world collapses. Picture: Netflix

Gender-swapping

In the book, The Stranger is ultimately revealed to be a man named Chris Taylor.

Having been traumatised by the revelation that the man who raised him was not actually his biological father, Chris devoted himself to exposing the secrets of others and punishing them for their deception.

Using the data he acquired while working for a company that helps women fake pregnancies, he bands together with a group of other people who possess similar stores of personal data, and they begin finding targets to blackmail.

While the others are in it for the money, Chris sees himself as an instrument of justice.

In the Netflix show, however, the stranger is actually a woman. The change was suggested by the novel’s author, who expressed his dislike for adaptations that are exact re-treads of the source material.

Ultimately, he claimed that the decision to gender-swap the character was made due to the sheer, overwhelming power of actress Hannah John-Kamen’s audition.

Re-location

Unsurprisingly given that it was written by an American writer, the novel takes place in the States.

It covers a huge amount of ground, too – hopping from New Jersey to Ohio and Pennsylvania.

By moving the action to Manchester, the series shrinks the whole geography of the story to make it more easily manageable.