Hillary Bell Locke's "Jail Coach"

Hillary Bell Locke graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, worked for a prominent New York law firm, and now practices law in a city far from New York but not under that name.

Here he shares some suggestions for casting a big screen adaptation of his new novel, Jail Coach:

Matthew McConaughey would be perfect for Jay Davidovich, the 6'4" blond-haired/blue-eyed Jewish Loss Prevention Specialist. I would have no trouble believing McConaughey putting a thug to sleep by stuffing a condom with quarters and using it as an improvised blackjack; and then, when the condom breaks, not saying, "Keep the change" on his way out (although in the movie version he probably will say that).

I like Dakota Fanning for Katrina ("like the hurricane") Thompson, a fundamentally decent high-school drop-out/ex-con artist familiar with jail, the Marines, and "cheap-ass Russian pistols." Thompson will bind your wounds and tear up if you say something sweet -- but before you threaten her little girl, glance in the mirror and make sure that's the way you want to look on the day you die.

The third key character is Kent Trowbridge, a talented actor with "a smile that could launch a million ships if women between 15 and 55 ever amass that many." He's basically a good guy but, as Thompson tells him when she explains why he needs a jail coach, "There's something about you that makes people just wanna kick the living shit outta you. That's your problem right there." So the obvious choice is Bradley Cooper.

Learn more about Jail Coach at the Poisoned Pen Press website.

--Marshal Zeringue