Jacob Stone's "Deranged"

Jacob Stone is the byline chosen by award-winning author Dave Zeltserman for his new Morris Brick series of serial-killer thrillers. His crime, mystery and horror fiction has won top praise and has been translated into six languages. His novels Small Crimes and Pariah were both named by the Washington Post as best books of the year. Small Crimes topped National Public Radio's list of best crime and mystery novels of 2008 and is being made into a feature film.

Here Zeltserman dreamcasts an adaptation of Deranged, the first Morris Black thriller:

Deranged is the first book of my Morris Brick crime thriller series. Morris is a former LAPD homicide detective who achieved minor celebrity status by solving several difficult serial killer cases. Now retired he runs Morris Brick Investigations. While he’s had his fill of serial killers, in each book he’ll find himself dragged back into an investigation.

Morris Brick is tough, smart, and relentless and Jason Isaacs showed in the Showtime series Brotherhood that he could play all that brilliantly.

Evangeline Lilly would be a good choice to play Natalie Brick, Morris’s beautiful and charming wife.

Dean Norris doesn’t physically resemble my killer, Henry Pollard (I don’t know if any actor does), but Norris demonstrated with his role as Hank in Breaking Bad that he can be physically intimidating and has the humor and pathos to play Henry.

Sheila Proops, Henry’s wife, is a tough role to cast because there are really two versions of her—pre and post-accident. Pre-accident version (shown in flashbacks) is stunningly beautiful, and Elizabeth Banks would be a good choice. Post-accident, Sheila has been left partially paralyzed and physically twisted, and Banks would need a lot of makeup and prosthetics to play Sheila.

Philip Stonehedge, a method actor who forces himself into the investigation, and for most of the book acts as Morris’s sidekick, is the easiest role to cast—Ryan Gosling. In the third Morris Brick thriller, Malicious, there’s a running joke where the killer is described by witnesses as either the actor Philip Stonehedge or Ryan Gosling.

Scarlett Johansson would be a good fit for Annie Walsh, the tough, no-nonsense, and very attractive LAPD Detective who works with Morris and his team.

Morris’s team is made up of three former LAPD homicide detectives: Dennis Polk, a wiseass, Fred Lemmon, who takes it as part of his job to keep Polk in line, and Charlie Bogle, Morris’ right-hand man. Michael Rapaport would be perfect as Polk, Matthew Rhys as Lemmon, and Jon Hamm (who has a bigger role in future books, as well as showing some inner demons) as Bogle.

Finally, to complete the cast, we need to find a lovable and clownish bull terrier to play Morris’s dog, Parker.

Visit Dave Zeltserman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue