Run Away: All the changes in the Netflix series from the Harlan Coben book
Run Away is the latest Harlan Coben novel to be adapted for the small screen...
Run Away on Netflix is the latest Harlan Coben book to be adapted for the small screen. But, as always with book-to-TV adaptations, changes have been made. But does the series have the same characters, and do the endings match?
The gripping eight-part series follows the story of Simon, a father whose life spirals wildly out of control when his daughter, Paige, goes missing. Soon, Simon finds himself drawn into a dark world where he uncovers secrets he never imagined possible.
Coben’s latest Netflix offering follows other recent adaptations of his work, including Fool Me Once and Missing You. As with most of the other Netflix series, Run Away follows the book’s plot for the most part. However, eagle-eyed fans of the author will see there are a few alterations. But what are they?
Read on as we unpick what happens in the TV show compared to the Run Away book…
*Warning – spoilers for all eight episodes of Run Away on Netflix below!*
Which characters does the Netflix adaptation of Run Away change?
One of the biggest changes from the book is that the character Lou, the tech expert who helps Elena Ravenscroft, has a much bigger role in the TV series. In the TV show, Lou is a woman who also happens to be Elena’s mother-in-law.
In the book, Lou is a man who plays a much smaller role in the story. The show expands the character of Lou for the amazing Annette Badland, who delivers a perfect performance in the role.
Which characters are missing from the Run Away book?
Fans of the TV show will know that, alongside Elena’s hunt for missing Henry Thorpe, she is also doing some digging into her own mystery.
In the series, Elena, played by Gavin and Stacey‘s Ruth Jones, is following someone called Maria. She works out that Maria is the secret daughter of her late husband, Joel – Lou’s son – and eventually confronts Lou about it.
There is huge drama surrounding Elena following Maria, including her stealing her dog and breaking into her house. In the TV series, Maria reports Elena for the break-in, and the police arrest her. However, none of this happens in the book, and Maria doesn’t even exist.
Is Ingrid’s friend Jay in the Run Away book?
No, another character created for the TV series is Ingrid’s colleague and past love interest, Doctor Jay Stanfield.
In the show, Jay fights to save Ingrid’s life when she arrives at the hospital with her gunshot wound.
He is by her bedside day and night and clearly still in love with her. Jay even provides Ingrid with an alibi for the night Aaron was murdered. This leads to Simon thinking Ingrid could be having an affair and that his kids might not be his biological children.
However, Jay doesn’t feature in the book at all.
What are the other major changes from the Run Away book?
The TV show adds another huge plot twist: Dee Dee and Ash’s backstory. In the series, the hired killers visit their former foster mum, Mrs O’Hara, and confront her about the abuse she subjected them to when they were young.
She lets them stay overnight and looks after them. But things turn nasty when they bring up the past and shoot her dead.
In the book, the pair share a troubled upbringing. However, they don’t visit Mrs O’Hara, and she isn’t murdered.
Is Aaron’s killer the same in the Run Away book?
Yes! The book and the TV show both see Ingrid kill Aaron in a bid to free Paige from his grip. Ingrid was desperate to get Paige clean, but knew that while Aaron was alive, he would keep supplying her with drugs.
The way Ingrid murders Aaron to look like a gang-related crime, and the fact that Paige knew her mum was the killer, are both the same.
In the Run Away book, Simon works out the truth just like he does in the TV show, even though Paige tries to lie that she was the one who killed Aaron.
What happens at the end of the Run Away book by Harlan Coben?
As with all of Harlan Coben’s work, just when you think the story is coming to an end, there is one more twist to knock you off your feet.
In the TV show, the police find Elena’s body. Then we see Ingrid waking up from her coma and recovering enough to come home. We also see Paige come home from rehab, clean for the first time in months. This all happens in the book and plays out in the same way.
The very end of the book sees Simon returning home from Elena’s funeral, and on the way home, he pays Paige’s attacker, Doug Mulzer, a visit.
He finds out from Doug that Aaron was never Paige’s boyfriend, but actually her half-brother, something she had worked out from doing a DNA test on a genealogy site.
Simon confronts Paige (in the book, he chats with her in her room, but in the TV show, they are in the garden) about Ingrid’s past.
Paige confesses that her mum joined The Shining Truth cult and gave birth to a son who she was told had been stillborn. Both the book and the TV show see Simon struggling to comprehend the awful realisation that Ingrid unknowingly killed her own son, but promising Paige that this is a secret so huge they have to keep it to themselves.
The Run Away book has the same ending, with Simon deciding that while he didn’t protect Ingrid from being shot by Luther, he will protect her for the rest of their lives by keeping her from ever finding out that she killed her own child.
Read more: Harlan Coben series: Lazarus creator’s English-language mysteries from Safe to Missing You
