Susan Elia MacNeal's "The Prisoner in the Castle"

Susan Elia MacNeal is the author of The New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today-bestselling Maggie Hope mystery series, starting with the Edgar Award-nominated and Barry Award-winning Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, which is now in its 22nd printing.

Her latest book is The Prisoner in the Castle, the eighth novel in the series.

Here MacNeal shares some insights into an adaptation of the series:

I’ve never really toyed around with the idea of a “perfect cast” for the Maggie Hope novels, as all the characters started out as composites of various friends and people I actually know, along with historical figures. They’re all, well, themselves, to me when I’m writing. That’s how I see them. It would be odd to suddenly start seeing them as a popular actor or actress.

However, I was absolutely gobsmacked when the actress Daisy Ridley (Star Wars, Murder on the Orient Express) bought the TV and film rights to the Maggie Hope series. And even more floored when I learned the production company Blueprint Pictures (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, A Very English Scandal, the upcoming Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society) were in to produce a TV series. The writer of the pilot script is Daisy Colum (her credits include Grantchester). We should find out more news about the Maggie Hope TV series in the next few months.

No one has been officially cast yet, but discussions are underway, and my fingers (and toes and everything else) are crossed!

The big question is—who would you like to see play Maggie Hope and her friends?

Visit Susan Elia MacNeal's website.

--Marshal Zeringue