Three Canadian Crime Novelists Have Their Books Optioned for TV

The works of three Canadian crime novelists have been optioned for television by Bell Media, which owns CTV.

The authors are: William Deverell, whose legal thrillers with a comic twist feature retired lawyer Arthur Beauchamp; Giles Blunt, whose series character is detective John Cardinal; and former criminal defense attorney Robert Rotenberg, who has just published his second stand-alone.

Deverell was the winner of the 1997 Hammett Award for Trial of Passion, while Blunt has been honored with the 2001 CWA Silver Dagger Award for Forty Words of Sorrow and the Arthur Ellis Award in 2004 for The Delicate Storm. Blunt intends to adapt his own novels for television.

"These projects exemplify our commitment to developing great Canadian programming. And we are equally delighted to be working with terrific Canadian screenwriters to adapt these novels and bring them to the screen," said Corrie Coe, senior vice-president of independent production for Bell Media, in a press release.

With the borders between local programming blurring all the more with international video on demand and the like, it's possible that fans of crime dramas here in the US will be able to enjoy these adaptations at some point in the future.

(Source: National Post.)