TV Rights bought to work by 3 Canadian Mystery Writers

The National Post reports that Bell Media, which owns CTV as well as 29 other specialty channels, is working to adapt novels by William Deverell, Giles Blunt and Robert Rotenberg for a TV audience.

1. William Deverell’s series about lawyer Arthur Beauchamp (Kill All the Judges, April Fool, and Mind Games. Set in BC’s Gulf Islands, the series is a comedic twist on crime fiction, and features Beauchamp trying to balance his personal life with courtroom drama. Deverell won the Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in North America for Crime Writing in 1997. Deverell created the popular CBC series Street Legal. Andrew Wreggitt, the Canadian screenwriter responsible for One Dead Indian, Shades of Black, and Mayerthorpe has signed on to write the script.

2. Toronto author Giles Blunt’s Detective John Cardinal series (Crime Machine, Black Fly Season, and Forty Words for Sorrow). Blunt’s series is grittier, and follows both a serial killer and the tormented policeman tasked with finding him. Blunt, who won Britain’s Silver Dagger Award for Fiction in 2001, will adapt his own work for TV.

3. In partnership with production company Shaftesbury, Bell Media will adapt Toronto writer Robert Rotenberg’s debut novel Old City Hall, which tells the story of a popular radio host who is arrested for murdering his wife. Open and shut or more nuanced than it looks? Shaftesbury is on the lookout for a screenwriter up to the challenge of adapting the novel. Rotenberg’s second novel, The Guilty Plea, came out in May.

Hat Tip: Suspense Sirens