Coben was in his senior year at college when he realized he wanted to write. His first book was accepted for publication when he was twenty-six. His thriller Play Dead was published in 1990, followed by Miracle Cure in 1991. He then began writing a series of thrillers featuring a former basketball player turned sports agent, Myron Bolitar, who often finds himself investigating murders involving his clients.

Tell No One, his first stand-alone thriller since the creation of the Myron Bolitar series in 1995, was published in 2001. Director Guillaume Canet made a French-language film based on the book, titled Ne le dis à personne, in 2006. Coben followed Tell No One with nine more stand-alone novels. His novel Hold Tight, released on April 15, 2008, was his first book to debut at number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Coben won the 1996 Anthony Award in the category “Best Paperback Original”, for Deal Breaker, the first volume of the Myron Bolitar series; it was also nominated for an Edgar Award in the same category. Fade Away won the 1997 Shamus Award and the Edgar Award for “Best Paperback Original”, was nominated for the Anthony Award and the Barry Award in the same category, and was nominated for a Dilys Award. The following Myron Bolitar novel, Back Spin, won the 1998 Barry Award and was nominated for the Dilys Award and the Shamus Award. In 2002, Tell No One was nominated for the Anthony Award, the Macavity Award, the Edgar Award and the Barry Award. In 2010, Live Wire won the crime fiction award, the RBA Prize for Crime Writing, worth €125,000.

Coben has won an Edgar Award, a Shamus Award and an Anthony Award. He wrote a short story, “The Key to My Father,” which appeared on June 15, 2003.

Coben’s 2003 book No Second Chance became the basis for the 2015 French miniseries No Second Chance. Two years later the same happened to Just One Look.

His 2015 novel The Stranger was adapted for Netflix as The Stranger (2020), starring Richard Armitage. His 2007 novel The Woods was adapted for Netflix in Poland as W głębi lasu where he served also as executive producer. The series was released in June 2020.

Coben is the creator of the British crime drama television show The Five, which first aired on April 2016 on the Sky 1 channel in the United Kingdom.

Coben is also the creator of the French-British crime drama television show Safe, which premiered in 190 countries on 10 May 2018.