PBS Masterpiece - 7 Fictional Female Detectives to Discover Now

Over on the PBS Masterpiece website you can find a wide range of information on their various shows including schedules, podcasts and special features. Their latest post is about fictional detectives.

(From the website)

With three separate take-charge women solving crimes and defying stereotypes on MASTERPIECE on PBS this fall, now’s the perfect time to explore the fascinating range of similar protagonists—from books. We asked crime fiction reviewers, authors, and insiders for their favorite female crime fighters, and they delivered a list stretching from an 11-year-old sleuth to a forensic archeologist. Whether you’re interested in cozy mysteries or futuristic police procedurals, there’s plenty to love in these seven recommendations.

Some well known authors, mystery folk and reviewers (Including myself) have contributed to some surprising choices.

The 7 fictional female detectives can be seen here.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Essays on Police and Policing in 21st Century Film and Television

 

The Black Lives Matter movement, the trial and conviction of Derek Chauvin calls to defund the police, and the prominence in the media of killer police such as Joseph James DeAngelo are recent manifestations of intense and even unprecedented levels of media attention on policing at interlocking points of race, inequality, social justice and political agendas. Equally, exciting cross-disciplinary engagement between fields of justice studies, criminology, cultural studies and popular culture are increasingly opening up.

Police have been the inspiration for and focus of countless film and television stories, a long-standing dramatic strain that is a fictional backdrop to the intense recent public scrutiny, and at times rejection of policing. Perceptions of the police are shaped by these long standing narrative forms of film and television that can also convey other shapers of perception, from bodycam footage to mobile phone recordings.

At this point of exceptional pressure on police conduct and the uncertain paths that policing will take in the 21st century, this collection is intended to be a topical opportunity to examine the themes of how police and policing are perceived and portrayed and these points are intended as the focal point for each contribution.

We are assembling a special collection of essays that consider addressing the intersection of police and policing with film and television in the 21st century. Possible areas include:

Genre studies and the procedural

Representations of race

Real and fictional police

Reality television

Televising trials

Police in pornographic films

Representations of police both historical and modern

Policing in dystopias

Moral and political authority

Contributions related to the United States are especially welcomed.

Advice for contributors

This edited collection is under contract.

If you are interested in contributing to this collection, we ask that you submit an abstract of up to 250 words explaining the focus and approach your proposed essay. The proposed volume is intended to be scholarly and will be peer reviewed but accessible in tone and approach. Each final contribution should be around 6000 words.

Abstracts should be emailed to marcus.harmes@usq.edu.au

Abstract submission deadline: October 15, 2021

Full paper submission deadline: March 1, 2022

About the editors

Associate Professor Marcus K Harmes has published extensively in the field of popular culture. His most recent publications include Roger Delgado: I am usually referred to as the Master (Fantom Publishing 2017) and Doctor Who and the Art of Adaptation (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015). He is the author of numerous studies on the church in modern popular culture, including book chapters in the collection Doctor Who and Race, and articles in journals including Science Fiction Film and Television, and Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. In 2018 he edited the Handbook for Springer on Postgraduate Education in Higher Education.

Meredith A Harmes teaches communication in the enabling programs at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia. Her research interests include modern British and Australian politics and popular culture in Britain and America. Her most recent publication in the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture was on race and cultural studies on American television. She holds an honours degree from the University of Queensland in political science and a Graduate Diploma of Journalism and a Masters of Public Relations from the University of Southern Queensland. She is co-editor of Postgraduate Education in Higher Education(Springer, 2018).

Dr Barbara Harmes lectures in communication at the University of Southern Queensland, with a particular focus on international students. Her doctoral research focussed on the discursive controls built around sexuality in late-nineteenth-century England. Her research interests include cultural studies, postgraduate education and religion. She has published in areas including modern Australian politics, postgraduate education, 1960s American television and her original field of Victorian literature.

Lynda La Plante - Listening to the Dead and The Judas Horse

 

Queen of Crime Drama Lynda La Plante launching series 2 of true crime podcast on 24th February; LISTENING TO THE DEAD

The forensics podcast Listening to the Dead is available via all good audio platforms. Season 2 will feature episodes on; blunt force homicide, poisoning, gun shot wounds, terrorism & mass disaster, strangulation & cause unknown.

LISTENING TO THE DEAD SEASON 2 PODCAST

Lynda La Plante’s true-crime podcast series, Listening to the Dead, co-hosted by CSI Cass Sutherland, will feature interviews with specialists in the field of criminal science.

The first series, which focussed on forensic science was an Apple Podcast bestseller. The new series, launching on 24th February 2021, will look at how investigators approach different causes of death – from blunt force to poisoning – with a focus on the methods used in the Prime Suspect and Tennison series. The podcast is a contributing factor to the incredible success Lynda La Plante enjoys in audiobook format, with sales of Buried in 2020 55% higher than her previous audio bestseller, Widows, in 2018.

NEW NOVEL JUDAS HORSE OUT 1ST APRIL 2021

La Plante will also be continuing her Detective Jack Warr series with a new book, Judas Horse, publishing on 1st April 2021. The first in the series, Buried, was published at the very start of the Covid-19 pandemic in April 2020, but despite this became a bestselling sensation, reaching #2 in the Sunday Times bestseller charts in both hardback and paperback, and going on to sell over 100,000 units in the UK and 130,000 units worldwide, making it La Plante’s biggest seller since Bloodline in 2011.

Lynda La Plante said “I am thrilled with all the activity taking place this year, re-packaging, online festivals, my podcast and the new Tennison,Unholy Murder, and Jack Warr novel, Judas Horse. I am also so grateful to the publishers, retailers and especially the readers, who have encouraged and supported me over the years. I’m looking forward to being able to meet and thank them all in person, hopefully in the not too distant future.”

About Lynda La Plante

#1 Sunday Times Bestselling author

Over 30 internationally bestselling novels

Over 170 hours of international television scripted

One of the best-loved authors in the world and 6th most popular in the UK

Recipient of four BAFTA awards

CBE since 2008 for services to Literature, Drama and Charity

1 of only 3 screenwriters to have been made an honorary fellow at the British Film Institute

The first lay person to be awarded with an honorary fellowship by The Forensic Science Society

Biography

Lynda La Plante was born in Liverpool. She trained for the stage at RADA and worked with the National theatre and RDC before becoming a television actress. She then turned to writing– and made her breakthrough with the phenomenally successful TV series Widows. Her novels have all been international bestsellers.

Her original script for the much-acclaimed Prime Suspect won awards from BAFTA, Emmy, British Broadcasting and Royal Television Society, as well as the 1993 Edgar Allan Poe Award. Lynda has written and produced over 170 hours of international television.

Lynda is one of only three screenwriters to have been made an honorary fellow of the British Film Institute and was awarded the BAFTA Dennis Potter Best Writer Award in 2000. In 2008, she was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to Literature, Drama and Charity.

If you would like to hear from Lynda, please sign up at here or you can visit Lynda’s website for further information. You can also follow Lynda on Facebook and Twitter

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Female Detective on TV

MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture (maifeminism.com) invites academic authors with expertise in television studies and other related disciplines to contribute to our upcoming special issue on female detectives on TV. 

For decades now, the female detective has occupied space within a genre that has been all-too-often reserved for the celebratory storylines of self-sacrificial men. She has served to break down sexist barriers placed before women within professional and personal frameworks, acting as an on-screen surrogate and inspiration for (female) spectators. The popularity of female-led TV crime drama across the world points to her success in captivating widespread audience attention. 

The topic of women in TV crime drama has inspired a range of significant feminist scholarship (see for example, Pinedo 2019; Coulthard, Horeck, Klinger, McHugh 2018; Greer 2017; Buonanno 2017; Moorti and Cuklanz 2017; Steenberg 2017, 2012; Jermyn 2017; Weissman (2016; 2010; 2007); McCabe 2015; Turnbull 2014; Brunsdon 2013; D’Acci 1994). This work has examined female-led TV crime drama from a variety of angles, including transnational cultural exchanges and currencies, serial form and narrative, gender, class, sexual and racial politics, and postfeminist identities and logics. 

Certain series such as The Killing (Denmark 2007-2012, US 2011-2014), The Bridge (Sweden 2011-2018, US 2013-2014), The Fall (UK 2013-2016), and Top of the Lake (NZ/Australia 2013/2017), have been singled out for how their female protagonists (Sarah Lund/Sarah Linden; Saga Noren; Stella Gibson, and Robin Griffin) resonate with viewers across transnational borders. Meanwhile, on primetime episodic US TV crime drama, Mariska Hargitay’s 21-year stint as Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (US 1999-present) – the longest running live-action TV series in American history – has turned her into a ‘touchstone figure’ (Moorti and Cuklanz 2017). Hargitay’s real-life activism, and her dedication to fighting sexual violence against women, has attained important cultural recognition, as Law & Order: SVU itself has received renewed critical consideration in the wake of the #MeToo movement. 

Notably, though, the female detectives mentioned in the above paragraph are overwhelmingly white. What shifts occur in the genre when a non-white female actor helms the main role as detective? What new possibilities, for example, are opened up by the emergence of black female legal investigators and detectives on network series such as ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder (US 2014-2019) and online TV series such as Netflix’s Seven Seconds (US 2018)? And to what extent is TV crime drama able to meaningfully engage with issues of intersectionality and the precariousness of social justice in twenty-first century society? 

This special issue seeks to build on the existing body of feminist writing on women in TV crime drama, through a further investigation of the figure of the female detective at this critical juncture for feminist television studies.  What new feminist visions of the female detective have emerged with changes in industrial practices and the growth of online streaming and niche television? How does the female detective of streaming TV compare to the images of the female detective found in the middlebrow crime dramas of linear TV? In an era of networked media in which popular feminism and popular misogyny (Banet-Weiser 2018) are more intertwined than ever before, what notions of empowerment are articulated through the figure of the female detective? To what extent does the female detective enable an exploration of central issues regarding female subjectivity and political resistance against systemic forms of violence? 

We hope to open further debate on the subject of the female detective in all her guises. Staying true to MAI spirit, we are seeking papers written from intersectional and multivalent feminist perspectives. We hope this issue not only examines the figures and representations of women crime investigators on the screen, but also situates their work in related social, cultural and political contexts.  

Our definition of the female detective is broad and inclusive. She can, but doesn't have to be a private eye or a police professional, just as long as she pursues social justice or truth. 

While analyses of current and recent examples seem to be an obvious priority as far as contribution to the field knowledge of visual culture analysis, we also welcome papers on female detectives from the past. 

In particular, we would like to encourage authors to consider submitting articles on the following titles: 

Seven Seconds How to Get Away with Murder Marcella Spiral Unbelievable  Killing Eve Safe  Top of the Lake  The Fall The Bridge  Veronica Mars Southland Fargo Prime Suspect  La Mante  Castle

The Killing Broadchurch Lucifer Elementary  The Wire The Closer  Happy Valley  Jessica Jones Absentia Tatort  The Bletchley Circle Collateral Suspects Witnesses Loch Ness Cagney and Lacey

We recognise that there are many more titles of interests, and the list could run quite long. If you wish to propose a paper on any other TV title, please get in touch with the editors to discuss your suggestion: contact@maifeminism.com

We plan to publish this issue in the first half of 2021. 

The editorial team includes: 

Tanya Horeck (Anglia Ruskin University, UK)

Jessica Ford (University of Newcastle, Australia)

Anna Backman Rogers (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)

Anna Misiak (Falmouth University, UK)

300-word Abstracts due: 30 May 2020

4000-6000 word Full Papers due: 1 December 2020

Please consult the MAI submission guidelines before submitting: https://maifeminism.com/submissions/

Please send your abstracts and forward responses to this call to contact@maifeminism.com    

Dr Anna Misiak 
MA Film & Television Course Leader

School of Film and TV
Falmouth University
United Kingdom
Tel: 0132637057
https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/content/dr-anna-misiak

http://womenundercommunism.com/author/

@AnnaMisiakFal

Founding Editor/Editor-in-Chief

MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture

https://maifeminism.com/

@MAI_JOURNAL

ITV to Adapt Falco Novels for Television

©Lindsey Davis

Great news for lovers of historical crime fiction and specifically those who love their historical crime fiction set during the Roman Empire.

According to Deadline.com Lindsey Davis’s series of Falco novels are being adapted for television by Mammoth Screen who were the producers of “Victoria”.  

Originally pitched to the BBC the series has now been moved to ITV as is being overseen by the Polly Hill who is the head of drama.  More information can be found here.

Lindsey Davis is the author of 20 novels featuring fictional Roman private detective, reluctant imperial agent and sometime poet Marcus Didius Falco.   The first book in the series Silver Pigs was published 30 years ago in 1989.  The last book to (directly) feature Marcus Didius Falco is Nemesis which was published in 2010.   Falco does crop up in the new series Falco: The Next Generation which features Marcus Didius Falco's adopted daughter, Flavia Albia.  The first book in the series is The Ides of April which was published in 2013.

The 1983 film Age of Treason which featured Bryan Brown as Marcus Didius Falco was based on the first book Silver Pigs.  However it has been disowned by Lindsey Davis on her website as it  "It departed from everything that I think makes the books special."  It bore little relation to the book, jettisoning most of the plot and characters.

MWA Edgar Award Nominees

Mystery Writers of America announced the Nominees for the 2019 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honouring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2018. The Edgar® Awards will be presented to the winners at the Gala Banquet, on April 25, 2019 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City. 

BEST NOVEL
The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard (Blackstone Publishing)
House Witness by Mike Lawson (Grove Atlantic – Atlantic Monthly Press)
A Gambler’s Jury by Victor Methos (Amazon Publishing – Thomas & Mercer)
Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley (Hachette Book Group - Mulholland)
Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne (Penguin Random House – Hogarth)
A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourn (Penguin Random House – Berkley)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
A Knife in the Fog by Bradley Harper (Seventh Street Books)
The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut (HarperCollins Publishers - Ecco)
The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs (Simon & Schuster - Touchstone)
Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin (HarperCollins Publishers - Ecco)
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Penguin Random House – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
If I Die Tonight by Alison Gaylin (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
Hiroshima Boy by Naomi Hirahara (Prospect Park Books)
Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani (Penguin Random House – Penguin Books)
Under My Skin by Lisa Unger (Harlequin – Park Row Books)

BEST FACT CRIME
Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge First and the Rise of Gay Liberation by Robert W. Fieseler (W.W. Norton & Company - Liveright)
Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood, and Betrayal by Jonathan Green (W.W. Norton & Company)
The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure by Carl Hoffman (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson (Penguin Random House - Viking)
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara (HarperCollins Publishers - Harper)
The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia by Alex Perry (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICALThe Metaphysical Mysteries of G.K. Chesterton: A Critical Study of the Father Brown Stories and Other Detective Fiction by Laird R. Blackwell (McFarland Publishing)
Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession by Alice Bolin(HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow Paperbacks)
Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s by Leslie S. Klinger (Pegasus Books)
Mark X: Who Killed Huck Finn's Father? by Yasuhiro Takeuchi (Taylor & Francis - Routledge)
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life by Laura Thompson (Pegasus Books)

BEST SHORT STORY
“Rabid – A Mike Bowditch Short Story” by Paul Doiron (Minotaur Books)
“Paranoid Enough for Two” – The Honorable Traitors by John Lutz (Kensington Publishing)
“Ancient and Modern” – Bloody Scotland by Val McDermid (Pegasus Books)
“English 398: Fiction Workshop” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Art Taylor (Dell Magazines)
“The Sleep Tight Motel” – Dark Corners Collection by Lisa Unger (Amazon Publishing)

BEST JUVENILE
Denis Ever After by Tony Abbott (HarperCollins Children’s Books – Katherine Tegen Books)
Zap! by Martha Freeman (Simon & Schuster – Paula Wiseman Books)
Ra the Mighty: Cat Detective by A.B. Greenfield (Holiday House)
Winterhouse by Ben Guterson (Macmillan Children’s Publishing Company – Henry Holt BFYR)
Otherwood by Pete Hautman (Candlewick Press)
Charlie & Frog: A Mystery by Karen Kane (Disney Publishing Worldwide – Disney Hyperion)
Zora & Me: The Cursed Ground by T.R. Simon (Candlewick Press)

BEST YOUNG ADULT
Contagion by Erin Bowman (HarperCollins Children’s Books - HarperCollins)
Blink by Sasha Dawn (Lerner Publishing Group – Carolrhoda Lab)
After the Fire by Will Hill (Sourcebooks – Sourcebooks Fire)
A Room Away From the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma (Algonquin Young Readers)
Sadie by Courtney Summers (Wednesday Books)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY“The Box” - Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Teleplay by Luke Del Tredici (NBC/Universal TV)
“Season 2, Episode 1” – Jack Irish, Teleplay by Andrew Knight (Acorn TV)
“Episode 1” – Mystery Road, Teleplay by Michaeley O’Brien (Acorn TV)
“My Aim is True” – Blue Bloods, Teleplay by Kevin Wade (CBS Eye Productions)
“The One That Holds Everything” – The Romanoffs, Teleplay by Matthew Weiner & Donald Joh (Amazon Prime Video)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
“How Does He Die This Time?” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Nancy Novick (Dell Magazines)
 

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD

A Death of No Importance by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur Books)
A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington Publishing)
Bone on Bone by Julia Keller (Minotaur Books)
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Press – Soho Crime)
A Borrowing of Bones by Paula Munier (Minotaur Books)

Congratulations to all! 

Innocent - A Gripping New ITV Drama Series from M.J. Arlidge and Chris Lang

Bestselling thriller writer and creator of the Helen Grace series M.J. Arlidge returns to his screenwriting roots to pen a four-part ITV drama series with Chris Lang.

Innocent will be broadcast across four nights from 14-17 May on ITV 1 and stars Hermione Norris and Lee Ingleby.

The four-part drama series tells the compelling story of David Collins (Lee Ingleby) who is living a nightmare. Convicted of murdering his wife Tara, David has served seven years in prison. He’s lost everything he held dear: his wife, his two children and even the house he owned. He’s always protested his innocence and faces the rest of his life behind bars. His situation couldn’t be more desperate. 

Despised by his wife’s family and friends, his only support has been his faithful brother Phil (Daniel Ryan) who has stood by him, sacrificing his own career and livelihood to mount a tireless campaign to prove his brother’s innocence. 

Convinced of his guilt, Tara’s childless sister Alice (Hemione Norris) and her husband Rob (Adrian Rowlins) are now parents to David’s children. For Alice there’s no doubt of his guilt and she’s utterly devastated by the prospect of David’s Appeal and Re-trial.

M.J. Arlidge

Innocent was written by M.J. Arlidge and Chris Lang of TXTV. M.J. Arlidge has worked in television for the last fifteen years, specializing in high-end drama production, including the prime-time crime serials Torn, The Little House and Silent Witness. Arlidge is also piloting original crime series for both UK and US networks. In 2015 his audio exclusive SIX DEGREES OF ASSASSINATION was a No. 1 bestseller.

Arlidge’s debut thriller, EENY MEENY, was the UK's bestselling crime debut of 2014 – and every book since has hit the bestsellers’ lists. His bestselling Helen Grace series includes POP GOES THE WEASEL, THE DOLL'S HOUSE, LIAR LIAR, LITTLE BOY BLUE, HIDE AND SEEK and LOVE ME NOT. Helen Grace was recently voted the ‘Kathy Reichs Award for Best Female Character’ in the 2017 Dead Good Readers awards.

Innocent stars Hermione Norris (Cold Feet, A Mother’s Son) and Lee Ingleby (The A Word, Inspector George Gently) and they will be joined by Daniel Ryan (Home Fires, Mount Pleasant), Angel Coulby (Merlin, The Tunnel), Nigel Lindsay (Victoria, Foyle’s War), Elliot Cowan (Da Vinci’s Demons, Frankenstein Chronicles) and Adrian Rowlins (Harry Potter, Dickensian).

Innocent starts Monday 14 May at 9pm on ITV. Continues Tuesday, Wednesday and concludes Thursday same week.

News about Brian Clemens and David Shelley

Brian Clemens 1931 to 2015

Copyright - bedfordshire-news.co.uk

Scriptwriter and producer Brian Clemens who was responsible for a large number of TV crime dramas such as The Avengers,  and The Persuaders. His scripts have enlivened almost every action-drama series seen on television over the last 50 years.

A thriller screenplay that he wrote Valid for Single Journey Only was accepted and shot by the BBC in 1955.  From the middle of the 1950s he was involved in a number of movies and TV drama series including Danger Man (which featured Patrick McGoohan), The Man from Interpol and the original The Invisible Man.

Brian Clemens wrote the original pilot episode for The Avengers back in 1961 and went on to be the script editor, associate producer and main scriptwriter for the series. He was also involved in writing episodes for the US TV series Darkroom which was hosted by James Coburn, Remington Steele (which featured Pierce Brosnan) and Max Monroe: Loose Cannon.  Brian Clemens was also involved in Bergerac, ITV’s Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.  He also adapted Gavin Lyall’s espionage thriller The Secret Servant into a three part drama for the BBC in 1984. He was also involved in C15: The New Professionals. He also wrote three episodes for Quiller the TV series and a number of episodes for The Persuaders along with The Champions TV series.

In the US he was again involved in and worked on a number of notable TV crime dramas including The Father Dowling Mysteries, Raymond Burr’s Perry Mason (the feature length series) and Diagnosis: Murder featuring Dick Van Dyke and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  

He was also involved in films and either wrote and produced a number of films for Hammer Films.  He also wrote the screenplays for the films Operation Murder (1957), Station –Six Sahara (1963) and Highlander II: The Quickening (1991).

Clemens was also the author of a number of novels including The Devil at Midnight (2001) and Murder Weapon (2012) both which were adapted into plays.

Using the name Tony O'Grady he also wrote episodes for the TV series Dial 999.

The Telegraph obituary can be found here.

-----

Congratulations go to David Shelley who is to take over as CEO of Little, Brown in July, with current CEO Ursula Mackenzie working on “special projects” for the publisher and its parent company Hachette UK until her retirement at the end of 2016.

Shelley, hitherto Little, Brown publisher, has now been appointed deputy CEO of Little, Brown, reporting to Mackenzie, and he will take over the CEO role on 1st July. The 38-year-old joined the Hachette UK main board on 1st January.

An interview with David Shelley can be found here.

The Cuckoo's Calling to be televised!

JK Rowling’s Cormoran Strike novels, written under her pen name of Robert Galbraith until she was unmasked as the author, are to be turned into a BBC crime series. Rowling published The Cuckoo’s Calling in April 2013 as Robert Galbraith. Three months later, it emerged that Galbraith and Rowling were one and the same.

The Cuckoo’s Calling will be the first book adapted for BBC One, with filming set to begin in the New Year. Rowling will collaborate on the project, also will include The Silkworm and casting for the lead role is under way.

The Casual Vacancy, has also been adapted for BBC One miniseries, in association with HBO and will be broadcast in February. The confirmed cast includes Michael Gambon, Keeley Hawes, Rory Kinnear, Monica Dolan, Julia McKenzie, and introduces Abigail Lawrie.

The BBC said it was a "coup" to secure the books.

The Cuckoo's Calling -----

When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case.

Strike is a war veteran - wounded both physically and psychologically - and his life is in disarray. The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model's complex world, the darker things get - and the closer he gets to terrible danger . . .