WITH two big-name TV series coined by Val McDermid – Traces and Karen Pirie – soon to air, here are five other Scottish authors whose thrillers and crime novels are set to make the leap from book to screen.
Denzil Meyrick
Game of Thrones star Rory McCann is to play the lead in an adaptation of Denzil Meyrick's million-copy selling DCI Jim Daley series after the TV rights were snapped up by Ocean Independent/Fudge Park last year. The drama will be written and directed by Scottish playwright and screenwriter Anthony Neilson, whose past credits include Sky Atlantic's hit show I Hate Suzie.
Harriet Tyce
Blood Orange, the bestselling debut novel from lawyer-turned-author Harriet Tyce, has been optioned by World Productions, the makers of Line of Duty and Bodyguard.
READ MORE: A forensic eye: Val McDermid unpicks our fascination with gritty TV crime dramas
The psychological thriller follows a high-flying criminal barrister taking on her first murder case at the same time as her personal life descends into chaos when an affair leads to dark obsession.
Doug Johnstone
Three generations of Edinburgh women running a family funeral director business with a sideline as private investigators are at the heart of this must-read domestic noir series. The first novel in Doug Johnstone's quartet – A Dark Matter – has been optioned as a TV drama by Glasgow-based production company Blazing Griffin.
Helen FitzGerald
Glasgow-based Synchronicity Films previously adapted Helen FitzGerald's novel The Cry into a four-part BBC drama starring Jenna Coleman as a young mother whose baby mysteriously disappears.
READ MORE: A forensic eye: Val McDermid unpicks our fascination with gritty TV crime dramas
The production company has since optioned two more of her books – Ash Mountain and Bloody Women – as TV projects (the Australian-born author has lived in Scotland for more than 30 years, so we can claim her as ours).
Craig Russell
Another on the Synchronicity Films slate is Craig Russell's Lennox series with plans afoot to adapt the 1950s-set crime novels for TV.
Writer and producer Robert Murphy, whose series credits include DCI Banks, Inspector George Gently, Shetland and Vera, is attached. The titular Lennox is a private eye, born in Scotland but raised in America after the Depression.
To read the full interview with Val McDermid talking Traces, Karen Pirie and sharing her fascinating insight into the enduring popularity of gritty TV crime drama, click here
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