How often do you read a book and think, “that would be a good movie”? Have you noticed when a movie, series, or mini-series was taken from a book? Bosch, on Amazon Prime, taken from Michael Connelly books, for example. We are big fans of using books to create quality content on film. Hopefully posts in this category will continue to grow. By no means do these posts represent the only books taken to the screen. Just a sampling to put it on the radar.
Grantchester created by James Runcie
DCI Banks created by Peter Robinson
Case Histories created by Kate Atkinson
Endeavour (Young Inspector Morse) created by Colin Dexter
Inspector Morse & Inspector Lewis created by Colin Dexter
is a New York Times bestselling author of original mysteries, a Shamus award winner and an experienced author of movie adaptions and tie-in novels. His graphic novel ROAD TO PERDITION was made into a major motion picture by Tom Hanks’s production company, Playtone.
is a Canadian novelist, poet, and screenwriter. His first novel, Cold Eye, was a psychological thriller set in the New York art world, which was made into the French movie Les Couleurs du diable. He is also the author of the John Cardinal novels, set in the small town of Algonquin Bay, in Northern Ontario. Wikipedia
Ronald William “Ron” McLarty is an American actor, playwright, narrator and novelist. He is regarded as one of the country’s leading audiobook narrators, having done over 100 titles and received many Audie Awards. McLarty has appeared in numerous television series, films and stage productions. Wikipedia
McLarty is quoted as calling himself “a writer who acted” rather than an actor who wrote. His recurring role as Sgt. Belson on Spenser for Hire made Ron very recognizable, but his novels were his passion.
is the author of 25 novels including the Jane Whitefield series (Vanishing Act, Dance for the Dead, Shadow Woman, The Face Changers, Blood Money, Runner, Poison Flower, and String of Beads), Death Benefits, and Pursuit, the first recipient of the Gumshoe Award for best novel.
He won the Edgar for The Butcher’s Boy, and Metzger’s Dog was a New York Times Notable Book. The Independent Mystery Booksellers’ Association included Vanishing Act in its “100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century,” and Nightlife was a New York Times bestseller.
Metzger’s Dog was voted one of NPR’s 100 Killer Thrillers–Best Thrillers Ever. Strip was chosen as a New York Times Notable Crime Book for 2010, and The Informant was a New York Times Notable Crime Book for 2011 and won the Barry Award for Best Thriller, 2011. Poison Flower was chosen among Booklist’s Best Crime Novels of 2013.
Martin Cruz Smith is an American mystery novelist. He is best known for his eight-novel series on Russian investigator Arkady Renko, who was first introduced in 1981 with Gorky Park. Wikipedia
Jeff Lindsay is the pen name of American playwright and crime novelist Jeffry P. Freundlich, best known for his novels about sociopathic vigilante Dexter Morgan. Many of his earlier published works include his wife Hilary Hemingway as a co-author. Wikipedia
After graduating in 1974, she researched a postgraduate doctorate on American Literature. She later taught at Dundee and began writing short stories in 1981. She began writing for women’s magazines after winning the 1986 Woman’s Own Short Story Competition. She was runner-up for the Bridport Short Story Prize in 1990 and won an Ian St James Award in 1993 for her short-story Karmic Mothers, which she later adapted for BBC2 television as part of its ‘Tartan Shorts’ series. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995), won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year award, beating Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh and Roy Jenkins’ biography Gladstone. The book is set in Yorkshire, narrated by Ruby Lennox, who takes the reader through the complex history of her family, covering the events of the twentieth century and reaching back into the past to uncover the lives of distant ancestors. The book has been adapted for radio and theatre, and has been adapted for television by the author. Her second novel, Human Croquet, was published in 1997 and relates the story of another family, the Fairfaxes, through flashback and historical narrative. Her third novel, Emotionally Weird, was published in 2000, and in 2002 a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World.
Kate Atkinson has written two plays for the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh: a short play, Nice (1996), and Abandonment, which premiered as part of the Edinburgh Festival in August 2000. She currently lives in Edinburgh and is an occasional contributor to newspapers and magazines. The four books Case Histories (2004), One Good Turn (2006), shortlisted for the British Book Awards Crime Thriller of the Year, When Will There be Good News? (2008) and Started Early, Took My Dog (2010), form a crime series featuring ex-policeman Jackson Brodie. These books were adapted for television and a 6-part series starring Jason Isaacs as Jackson Brodie was broadcast in 2011. In 2013 she published Life after Life, winner of the Costa Novel Award and the South Bank Sky Arts Literature Prize; and A God in Ruins (2015), a companion novel to Life After Life, featuring several of the same characters. In 2019 Jackson Brodie returned in Big Sky, and Atkinson also published Transcription.
(British Council – Literature)
Michael Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. Connelly is the bestselling author of thirty-one novels and one work of non-fiction
James Sallis (born December 21, 1944 in Helena, Arkansas, United States) is an Americancrime writer, poet, critic, musicologist and musician, best known for his series of novels featuring the detective character Lew Griffin and set in New Orleans, and for his 2005 novel Drive, which was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name.
