Grant Bywaters's "The Red Storm"

Grant Bywaters's The Red Storm won the Minotaur Books/Private Eye Writers of America Best First Private Eye Novel Competition. Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of the novel:

I modeled the appearance of my detective William Fletcher off of 1960s heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. Liston was a freak of nature. He had 15 inch fists, which were so big they didn’t fit into standard boxing gloves.

So the actor I could see handling the physical aspects of Fletcher would have been a younger Laurence Fishburne. I’m referring to Fishburne around the time he played Morpheus in the first Matrix movie.

For Bill Storm, the sadistic criminal acquaintance from Fletcher’s past, is an easy one, Jeff Bridges. Bridges is imposing and can play a nasty villain when he wants to.

Zell, the daughter Storm wants Fletcher to find, is an interesting one. I never really had any particular actress in mind when creating the husky voiced raven haired wildcat, but Emma Stone seems to fit her pretty well. She’s a great actress and she can sing, which is important, since Zella is a singer. Of course, Stone would have to underperform a bit because Zella is not a very good singer when Fletcher meets her.

Then there is of course Brawley, the detective that is not really Fletcher’s friend but they both sort of use each other. Michael Chiklis could handle it because he is real good at playing someone that can cross the line and do bad things, but deep down is not really a bad guy.

Learn more about The Red Storm at the publisher's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Red Storm.

--Marshal Zeringue