Will Shindler's "The Bone Queen"

Will Shindler has spent most of his career working as a broadcast journalist for the BBC. He also spent nearly a decade working on a number of British television dramas, working for both the BBC Drama Series Department, and Talkback Thames Television as a writer and script editor. He has been writing novels since 2020, including the five-book critically acclaimed DI Alex Finn series: The Burning Men, The Killing Choice, The Hunting Ground, The Blood Line, and The Cold Case. He currently combines reading news bulletins for BBC Radio London with his novel writing and has previously worked as a presenter for ITV West, a reporter for BBC Radio Five Live, and as one of the stadium presenters at the 2012 London Olympics. He lives in London.

Here Shindler dreamcasts an adaptation of his new novel, The Bone Queen:

Before I wrote The Bone Queen, all of my novels were police procedurals. I’d always tried to make them as realistic and gritty as possible, so for this book I deliberately set out to do something different. I wanted to write in a new style, to experiment with a different kind of prose and a looser, more atmospheric form of storytelling. Hopefully the hills of Athelsea Island are a little more evocative than the streets of south London, and the line between reality and fantasy a little more blurred. For that reason, when I think about directors, I’m drawn to perhaps someone like Alfonso Cuarón or Guillermo del Toro - which should give you a sense of the tone I’m aiming for!

The story follows Jenna, a recovering alcoholic, as she searches for her runaway teenage daughter, Chloe. The clues she uncovers suggest Chloe may have travelled to the fictional island of Athelsea (with sincere apologies to the Scilly Islands, which I’ve geographically displaced just off the coast of Cornwall). Jenna is accompanied by her glamorous younger sister, Hattie, who is carrying a significant secret of her own.

With my previous books, I’ve never really given much thought to casting. It’s not that I object to the idea, but I find that once you start picturing specific actors, the characters can lose some of their individuality - something I like to preserve while I’m writing. For the purposes of this exercise, though, The Bone Queen has three major female roles which would require some heavyweight casting….

I briefly considered widening the net and casting non-British actors - Sadie Sink as Chloe, for example, was a tempting idea - but in the end I’ve limited myself to a trio of Brits.

For Jenna, I’d want someone who can combine toughness with real vulnerability, so my choice would be the mighty Suranne Jones. For readers outside the UK who might not be familiar with her work, there’s plenty to discover, but I’d particularly recommend the 2009 drama Unforgiven.

There are no shortage of strong contenders for Chloe, Jenna’s teenage daughter, who becomes obsessed with the legend of the Bone Queen. My pick - provided she’d be willing to dye her hair bright pink - would be Florence Hunt, who played Hyacinth in Netflix’s Bridgerton.

And finally, as Jenna’s younger, unflappable sister Hattie, I’d cast Aimee Lou Wood, best known for Sex Education and countless roles since.

So that’s my dream director and dream cast. My only request is that they invite the writer along for the first day of principal photography!

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--Marshal Zeringue