Dublin Murders adapted for TV from Tana French novels

Big news for Tana French fans! 

Starz acquired from Fremantle the eight-episode drama series Dublin Murders, adapted from Tana French’s novels In the Woods and The Likeness (both available from Penguin Books). Killian Scott (C.B. Strike) and Sarah Greene (Penny Dreadful) lead the cast as detectives Rob Reilly and Cassie Maddox. Production is underway in Belfast and Dublin.

Dublin Murders follows Rob Reilly (Scott) – a smart-suited detective whose English accent marks him as an outsider – who is dispatched to investigate the murder of a young girl on the outskirts of Dublin with his partner, Cassie Maddox (Greene). Against his better judgment and protected by his friendship with Cassie, he is pulled back into another case of missing children and forced to confront his own darkness. As the case intensifies, Rob and Cassie’s relationship is tested to the breaking point and when Cassie is sent undercover for another murder case, she is forced to come face to face with her own brutal reckoning.

Dublin Murders will air on Starz in the U.S. and Canada as well as StarzPlay in Germany, France, Italy and Spain in 2019.

Tana French's The Dublin Murders: BBC

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From In Reference to Murder:

BBC One has given the greenlight to an eight-part crime drama The Dublin Murders, based on Tana French’s award-winning series of mysteries. Sarah Phelps, who recently re-imagined several Agatha Christie novels for the BBC, will adapt the first two books about the fictional Dublin Murder Squad, drawn from French’s In The Woods and The Likeness. Blending psychological mystery and darkness, each novel is led by a different detective or detectives from the same Dublin squad.

Maybe we'll find out what happened in the Woods!!!??

Irish Crime Fiction Awards: 2016

Tana French won the Bord Gais Energy Crime Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards for The Trespasser.

Other crime novel wins: Liz Nugent’s Lying in Wait won the RTE Radio One Ryan Tubridy Listeners’ Choice Award, and Graham Norton’s Holding won the Popular Fiction Book Award.

HT: Declan Burke via The Rap Sheet

Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad coming to TV

From Deadline:

Euston Films’ Kate Harwood has joined forces with Alan Gasmer and Peter Jaysen of Veritas Entertainment to bring a series of Tana French-penned murder mysteries to the international television market. The Dublin-based French won several literary prizes for her first novel, 2007’s In The Woods, and followed that up with The Likeness and Faithful Place, among others. The partners have optioned the three books which they liken to True Detective.

The novels each follow a different case and include overlapping characters who are alternately in the forefront or the background of the main story. They are set in the fictional Dublin Murder Squad and have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide.

Read more here.

Hope we'll see this made and that we'll get it in the U.S.!

HT: The Rap Sheet via In Reference to Murder

MORE CRIME FICTION/MYSTERY AWARDS

Thanks to J. Kingston Pierce at The Rap Sheet, I heard about the winners of the following two awards that were given out last week. Thanks also to the original sources for reporting them.

Broken Harbour by Tana French, won the 2012 Irish Book Award in the Crime Novel category. Runners Up: Slaughter’s Hound Declan Burke; Vengeance by Benjamin Black; The Istanbul Puzzle by Laurence O’Bryan; Too Close for Comfort by Niamh O’Connor; and Red Ribbons by Louise Phillips.


Åsa Larsson’s Till offer åt Molok won the Swedish Crime Academy’s 2012 award for Best Swedish Crime Novel.  Peter Robinson’s Before the Poison won the Academy’s Best Foreign Crime Novel prize.

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And from Craig Johnson comes news that Hell is Empty has been nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Here's the longlist of books nominated for the 2013 Award. 154 books were nominated by libraries in 120 cities, in 44 countries, in 19 languages. 5 judges are reading the books and deciding, but it's a great list, so feel free to read along with them! Other mysteries on the list include Jussi Adler-Olsen's The Keeper of Lost Causes, When the Killing's Done by T. C. Boyle, The Potter's Field by Andrea Camilleri, The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco, Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James, The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler,  The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, Portrait of a Spy by Daniel Silva, Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson, and many others. Smashing Longlist!

Tana French: The Likeness

According to Deadline.com, Paramount Pictures has acquired Tana French's The Likeness.

The novel will be adapted by Stephanie Savage, who will produce the project with Fake Empire partner Josh Schwartz. The company also has the rights to French's In The Woods. The Likeness is a sequel to French’s 2008 novel In The Woods, which the studio has also acquired.

Hat Tip: ShelfAwareness.com

Tana French: Faithful Place

If you read my blog or know me personally, you know that I really think Tana French is a terrific writer. In the Woods and The Likeness were both on my Best of Lists for their respective years. I wrote about them both... and blogged about them.

Now there's news that Faithful Place, the third in the series, will be out in July 2010. Here's the Amazon synopsis:

The course of Frank Mackey’s life was set by one defining moment when he was nineteen. The moment his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, failed to turn up for their rendezvous in Faithful Place, failed to run away with him to London as they had planned. Frank never heard from her again. Twenty years on, Frank is still in Dublin, working as an undercover cop. He’s cut all ties with his dysfunctional family. Until his sister calls to say that Rosie’s suitcase has been found. Frank embarks on a journey into his past that demands he reevaluate everything he believes to be true.

Hardcover to be published July 12, 2010. Paperback: July 7, 2010 on Amazon. That can't be right, but I found it on the Amazon Website? Also found July 13, 2010 at Borders and other places.

Publishers Weekly Best of '08

Once again, I need to thank The Rap Sheet for bringing my attention to mystery news. Linda Richards blogged last week about the Publisher's Weekly Best of '08
list.

Not only did PW choose their best mysteries of '08, but there were several mysteries listed under 'general fiction'. Three of the general fiction books made my top 10 mystery list for '08, so far. I haven't finished reading everything, so I haven't put my list together yet.

So the mysterious works PW included under 'general fiction' are:

• When Will There Be Good News?, by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown)
• Hold Tight, by Harlan Coben (Dutton)
• The Brass Verdict, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
• Master of the Delta, by Thomas H. Cook (Harcourt)
• The Likeness, by Tana French (Viking)
• Ritual, by Mo Hayder (Atlantic Monthly)
• Flesh House, by Stuart MacBride (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

These are the books PW chose as its best mysteries of 2008:

• Wild Inferno, by Sandi Ault (Berkley Prime Crime)
• Lie Down with the Devil, by Linda Barnes (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• Ghost at Work, by Carolyn Hart (Morrow)
• The Private Patient, by P.D. James (Knopf)
• The Messengers of Death: A Mystery in Provence, by Pierre Magnan, translated from the French by Patricia Clancy (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• Death’s Half Acre, by Margaret Maron (Grand Central)
• Salt River, by James Sallis (Walker)
• Fear of Landing, by David Waltner-Toews (Poisoned Pen)
• The Calling, by Inger Ash Wolfe (Harcourt)

The entire list with comments about each book is available Here

Macavity Awards

I gave out the Macavity Awards at Bouchercon in Baltimore during opening ceremonies. What a great night. I followed the new CrimeSpree Awards. The Barry Awards were given out after the Macavity. They're the awards given out by readers of Deadly Pleasures and Mystery News.

So without further ado... the Macavity Award winners 2008. Congratulations.

The Macavity Award is named for the "mystery cat" of T.S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats). Each year the members of Mystery Readers International nominate and vote for their favorite mysteries in four categories.

Best Mystery Novel: Laura Lippman: What the Dead Know (Morrow)

Best First Mystery: Tana French: In the Woods (Hodder & Stoughton*/Viking)

Best Mystery Short Story: Rhys Bowen: "Please Watch Your Step" (The Strand Magazine, Spring 2007)

Best Mystery Non-Fiction: Roger Sobin, editor/compiler: The Essential Mystery Lists: For Readers, Collectors, and Librarians (Poisoned Pen Press)

Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery: Ariana Franklin: Mistress of the Art of Death (Putnam)

Tana French's top 10 maverick mysteries

Check out the Guardian (UK) for Tana French's top 10 maverick mysteries. French's Top Ten: The Secret History by Donna Tartt. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe. Innocent Blood by P.D. James. Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Hurting Distance by Sophie Hannah.The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey. A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read.

I haven't read Hurting Distance, so I'll put that on my TBR list. I really admire Tana French as an author who breaks the mold. Don't miss The Likeness.

Tana French The Likeness

Just finished The Likeness, and Edgar Award winner Tana French’s second novel is as good or even better than In the Woods, a book that won many mystery awards. Cassie Maddox from In the Woods is at the center of this novel, which is written from a totally different point of view.

It’s said that everyone has a doppelganger, a double, but when a woman is discovered stabbed in a cottage, she not only looks like Cassie, but she is identified as Lexie Madison, an undercover alias created for Cassie a few years before. Although this may sound a bit far-fetched, French treats it so well that it’s the irony of the situation that draws you into the book. Cassie goes undercover again to discover who murdered ‘Lexie Madison’ and who was Lexie Madison. Her discovery is as much about herself as it is about the victim.

This novel is both character driven and plot driven. French does a great job of delineating the four graduate student housemates with their interrelationships, distinct personalities and motivations. The house where these students live is also a character, and the house defines them. Even if you get lost in their idylls, you're back up front and close to center with Cassie, as she searches for the killer of Lexie, who made up the fifth of this ‘merry’ band.

I learned a lot about undercover skills that are integrated, defined and revealed in this book.

The whole plot revolves around the theme of ‘likeness’-- who's who and who you really.

French’s writing style is dense and descriptive. The Likeness is a long book, but one I couldn’t put down. I highly recommend this exceptional mystery.

Read an essay by Tana French from the Mystery Readers Journal.