Harlan Coben, US crime writer, created crime show The Five to escape Hollywood

Did you hear the one about the best-selling American crime author? He went to Britain to make a television show.

That's no punchline, it's actually what happened when Harlan Coben, a prolific novelist whose books have sold over 60 million copies, decided that one of his ideas was better suited to the screen than the page.

The result is the mystery The Five, a 10-part crime drama created by Coben and developed, produced and initially aired in Britain. In telling the tale of four adults whose lives are haunted by the unsolved disappearance 20 years prior, and now possible reappearance, of one of the quartet's younger brother, Coben opted out of the Hollywood grind, with which he's had a few unsatisfactory dalliances, for the UK production house behind the likes of Happy Valley and Queer as Folk.

"For me it was all about the people. To be able to work with Nicola Shindler and Red Production Company was the big draw. They've done a bunch of shows I really admire," explains the genial 54-year-old. "Instead of trying to deal with the Hollywood process, I wanted to make a show where I had more of a say and less notes so I could make what I wanted to make."

A university friend of fellow authors David Foster Wallace and Dan Brown, Coben published his first novel Play Dead in 1990, and has enjoyed considerable success since 1995, when he introduced the recurring protagonist Myron Bolitar, a sports agent whose client duties include murder investigations. In the two decades since he's been a model of consistency, publishing a book every year, whereas television has changed considerably.

"TV's never been better than it is now. Today's shows really are visual novels, whereas I didn't have an interest in doing TV 10 or 15 years ago," Coben says. "Having Myron Bolitar solve a crime each week didn't really hold much interest to me. The Five is a novel that I didn't write before I put it on the screen. It's 10 parts of one big story."

"What was important to me was how we nailed the ending," he adds. "From the beginning I told them, 'I am telling a complete story with a beginning, a middle, and a complete ending'. I won't ask people to watch 10 episodes of TV and only give them half an answer or a cliffhanger."

The experience was obviously satisfying, given that Coben is speaking from a "dive bar" in New York City, where he's been sharing drinks with The Five's head writer, Danny Brocklehurst, and script editor, Richard Fee, after a day spent breaking down the plot of The Four, a completely new mystery that sets up an ongoing crime anthology, a la True Detective, for Coben and his now good friends and valued collaborators.

"With a book I'm the sole actor, writer, director – I do it all," notes Coben, who watched audition tapes and screened edits. "Sharing those roles with a lot of talented people was actually a thrill, because I've spent a great deal of my life alone in a room."

Coben's ideas can travel. His 2001 thriller Tell No One became a riveting French feature film when adapted by Guillaume Canet in 2006, and while The Five has familiar British production design and faces, including Tom Cullen (Downton Abbey) and Sarah Solemani (Bad Education), it could be set anywhere as it unfolds at a furious clip.

"The best part was when it beat my imagination," Coben says. "With the opening I had pictured the four kids in the park, making fun of the younger one so that he goes home and then vanishes, but when I saw it on the screen with the bright greens and the red of his sweatshirt, the way he holds his hand up, it's better than what I envisaged.

WHAT The Five

WHEN All episodes streaming now on SBS On Demand

Harlan Coben's top three crime shows

Columbo: I grew up with this show and it still holds up. The concept is genius: Columbo isn't in the first 20 or 30 minutes, instead you watch a crime that seems perfect, then this dishevelled detective appears to figure out the truth and captures the villain in a masterful way.

The Sopranos: It wasn't just about the mob, it was about trying to make them human. I'm not big on books that deal with great evil or great good, I prefer the grey space in between. Seeing Tony's family, seeing him go to a psychiatrist, was just brilliant TV.

Breaking Bad: It had a Shakespearean quality to it of the man who just kept going down the rabbit hole until he couldn't get himself out. It was brilliantly written, brilliantly acted, and emotionally riveting.