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Published Jan 31, 2026, 3:15 PM EST
Dhruv is a Lead Writer in Screen Rant's New TV division. He has been consistently contributing to the website for over two years and has written thousands of articles covering streaming trends, movie/TV analysis, and pop culture breakdowns.
Before Screen Rant, he was a Senior Writer for The Cinemaholic, covering everything from anime to television, from reality TV to movies.
After high school, he was on his way to become a Civil Engineer. However, he soon realized that writing was his true calling. As a result, he took a leap and never looked back.
Netflix's new crime thriller series not only adapts a bestselling book series but also comes off as the perfect combination of Reacher and True Detective's best elements.
Reacher and True Detective belong to completely different brands of crime-thriller storytelling. Yet, a close look at both reveals how both do not shy away from portraying their detective characters in a more anti-heroic light. While True Detective inclines more towards this theme, Reacher, too, captures how the Alan Ritchson character often crosses moral boundaries to serve his perceived sense of justice.
The main character in Netflix's upcoming crime thriller is similar, making the show perfect for Reacher and True Detective fans.
Netflix’s Adaptation Of Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole Books Looks Incredible
While only time will tell how Netflix's take on Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole books will turn out, the show looks incredible in the first teaser. Purely from a visual standpoint, it seems reminiscent of some of the best and bleakest modern detective shows, like Reacher and True Detective.
Check out the teaser below:
Harry Hole Is A Flawed Anti-Hero Detective Like Jack Reacher & Rust Cohle
The trailer establishes that the show is staying true to the books' layered portrayal of the titular detective character. Similar to law investigators like Rust Cohle in True Detective, Detective Harry Hole, too, seems to have an alcohol problem even though he displays almost genius deductive abilities. He is also an absolute wild card like Reacher and often resorts to extreme violence to solve criminal cases.
Detective Hole's trailer also hints that the character's addictions and darker tendencies stem from unresolved trauma and guilt, making him similar to Matthew McConaughey's Rust Cohle from True Detective season 1. As the original books suggest, Harry Hole, like Jack Reacher, will also often operate outside the traditional boundaries of the legal system to ensure justice is served.
Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole premieres worldwide on Netflix on March 26, 2026.
With so many intriguing overlaps between the upcoming Detective Hole series, True Detective, and Reacher, it would be fair to say that Netflix might have found its perfect response to the HBO and Prime Video crime thrillers.
Netflix’s Detective Hole Is Adopting Prime Video’s Winning Reacher Adaptation Formula
Interestingly, instead of treading the same path as other popular crime thrillers like Bosch and Cross, Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole on Netflix is adapting one book per season. Like Reacher, it is not sticking to the original books' chronography but solely focusing on only one book's story each season. The show's season 1 is based on the fifth installment in the original series, The Devil's Star.
If this works out well for the show, the Netflix series could continue this approach and pick up another book for season 2.
There are over 10 Detective Hole's books in Jo Nesbø’s original series, giving Netflix enough source material content to make the show last as long as True Detective and Reacher. It may be too soon to call it a worthy replacement for any existing crime thriller series, but it undoubtedly has potential to rank among the greats.
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