Julia Buckley's "A Dark and Twisting Path"

Julia Buckley is a Chicago mystery author. She writes the Writer's Apprentice Series and the Undercover Dish mysteries, and is soon to launch a new series with Berkley Prime Crime.

Buckley has taught high school English for thirty years; she lives near Chicago with her husband, four cats, and a mischievous Labrador named Digby. She has two grown sons. She is a lifelong reader and a writer since around age six, when she started a notebook of poems.

Here Buckley dreamcasts an adaptation of A Dark and Twisting Path, the newest Writer's Apprentice mystery:

Casting the residents of Blue Lake, Indiana was harder than I expected. When you picture people a certain way in your head and then try to match them to already-existing people, you find a certain dissonance.

However, these can certainly get readers thinking about who they themselves would cast as the main characters of my Writer's Apprentice series: Lena London, her employer, Camilla Graham, their neighbor, Sam West, the police chief, Doug Heller, Lena's best friend, Allison Branch, and her research librarian friend, Belinda Frailey.

Here are the people I came up with for my casting call.

For Lena: I needed a young woman under thirty who has dark hair and brown eyes, and Zoey Deutch fits the bill, not only in loveliness but in spunk and personality.

For Camilla: Several women were possible, but of course I had to go with the lovely Judy Dench for a first try-out. She has a real quality, and a warmth of personality, that I think would work well for this famous author.

For Sam West: This was a very difficult one, and the closest I came was New Zealand actor Martin Henderson. He has dark hair and blue eyes, like Sam, and he has a potentially mysterious quality.

For Doug Heller: Doug is blond, with brown eyes. Gabriel Macht from Suits seems like he could fit into Blue Lake, wearing the cop uniform but also hiking around the bluffs.

For Allison: Lena's friend always looks effortlessly lovely (at least from Lena's perspective), so the ever-beautiful Margot Robbie could certainly do justice to the character. Allison is an endless well of love and compassion, and Robbie's varied performances have demonstrated her ability to play someone kind yet vulnerable.

For Belinda: I discovered this young lady in Google Images. Emily Bett Rickards, a Canadian actress who stars in the show Arrow, seems able to convey the introversion and brilliance of Belinda Frailey. And of course here she is wearing a necessity for Belinda--a pair of glasses.

Learn more about the book and author at Julia Buckley's website and her blog, Mysterious Musings.

--Marshal Zeringue