Neil Cross on his New Luther Book and the Future of the Character

Neil Cross is the creative force behind the television series Luther, and his first novel featuring the character was published last week in the UK — The Calling. (It won't be published here in the US until September 2012.)

In an interview yesterday with BBC Radio 4's Front Row, Cross talks about the book, the character, and the future, which he says is more likely to be a theatrical film than an additional television season. (BBC has recommissioned the series for a third season, though we don't believe production has begun yet.)

In Cross's new book, Detective Chief Inspector John Luther is introduced as a homicide detective with an extraordinary case clearance rate. He's obsessive, instinctive, and intense. Nobody who ever stood at his side has a bad word to say about him. And yet there are rumors that Luther is bad — not corrupt, not on the take, but tormented. He seethes with a hidden fury that at times he can barely control. Sometimes it sends him to the brink of madness, making him do things he shouldn't — things well beyond the limits of the law.