SyFy Options TV Rights to Charlaine Harris's Harper Connelly Mysteries

Cable network SyFy has picked up the television rights to the "Harper Connelly" mysteries by Charlaine Harris. The first book in the series, Grave Sight, which introduces the character, was published in 2005. Kam Miller (Killer Instinct, Law & Order: SVU) will write the series pilot screenplay. (Back in 2010, CBS expressed in interest in adapting the novels, but didn't move forward with the project.)

Harper Connelly has what you might call a strange job: she finds dead people. She can sense the final location of a person who's passed, and share their very last moment. The way Harper sees it, she's providing a service to the dead while bringing some closure to the living — but she's used to most people treating her like a blood-sucking leech. Traveling with her step-brother Tolliver as manager and sometime-bodyguard, she's become an expert at getting in, getting paid, and getting out fast. Because for the living it's always urgent — even if the dead can wait forever.

Harris is also the author of the "Southern Vampire" mysteries, which serve as the basis for HBO's True Blood.

(Related article: Entertainment Weekly.)