Paul Cleave's Crime Novel The Cleaner Optioned for Film

Paul Cleave's debut crime novel The Cleaner has been optioned for film by new French production company Stone Angels. Originally published by Random House New Zealand and Random House Australia in 2006, it has not yet been picked up by a US publisher. (Cleave's fourth and fifth novels, however, have recently been published in the US by Atria Books.)

In The Cleaner, Joe is in control of everything in his simple life, including both his day job at the police department and his "night work". He isn't much bothered by the daily news reports of the Christchurch Carver, who, they say, has murdered seven women. But Joe knows the Carver only killed six. He knows that for a fact. And Joe is going to find the copy-cat killer, he's going to punish him for the one, then frame him for the other six. It's perfect plan because he already knows he can outwit the police.

All he needs to now is take care of all the women who keep getting in his way; his domineering mother for one. Then there is Sally, the maintenance worker who sees him as a replacement for her dead brother; and the mysterious Melissa, the only woman to have ever understood him, but whose fantasies of blackmail and torture don't have a place in Joe's investigation.

Stone Angels intends to produce films for the middle ground between edgy mainstream and accessible arthouse, along the lines of the recent film adaptation of James Sallis's Drive, an aesthetic that's now yielding strong commercial results on both sides of the Atlantic.

(Related articles: Variety via In Reference To Murder.)