Thursday, February 13, 2025

Tamara L. Miller's "Into the Fall"

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Tamara L. Miller earned her PhD in Canadian history before embarking on a career working for the federal government. Miller began as a doe-eyed policy analyst and eventually moved into an executive role with the Government of Canada. She later left public service, older and perhaps a little wiser, to become a writer. Miller is past president of Ottawa Independent Writers and has written several articles published online by the likes of CBC and Ottawa Life Magazine.

Over the years, the author has called many Canadian cities home but now lives in Ottawa with her family and two long-suffering cats. She’s always been fascinated by the raw beauty of the wilder places in the world and escapes to them whenever possible.

Here Miller dreamcasts an adaptation of Into the Fall, her first novel:
How fun is this? I bet every novelist spends at least a little time imagining which actors could bring their novel to life on screen. Into the Fall centers on the morally ambiguous terrain we travel when life drives us into desperate circumstances. When Sarah Anderson’s husband disappears, she’s forced to consider the lengths she’ll go to in order to protect her family, including from her own secrets.

There are so many talented actors who I think could beautifully embody the main characters, but I settled on the ones I thought had a bit of a darker edge in their performances:

Sarah — Eve Hewson would make an unbelievable Sarah. Her role in Bad Sisters was a perfect blend of sweet innocence and practically macabre. Plus, I think Irish artists share a lot in common with Canadian ones when it comes to exploring the darker reaches of the soul.

Matthew — Readers gets to know Sarah’s husband, Matthew, mainly through the memories of other characters. His presence always comes with a bit of a dark shadow. Cosmo Jarvis had this wonderful brooding strength in the recent Shogun mini-series. I think he could perfectly capture Matthew’s wordless internal moral struggles.

Izzy — It has to be Kathryn Hahn for Izzy, Sarah’s estranged sister and emotional support. Hahn’s character in Bad Moms was a partial role model for Izzy. She has this terrific restrained edge to her portrayals, which would really suit Izzy’s temperament and her ability to command a room.

Boychuk — I love the idea of Jeff Daniels for Rob Boychuk, the determined small-town cop who’s driven to find the answers behind Matthew’s disappearance. As an actor, Daniel’s is a chameleon and can embody just about any character, but it was also his face I imagined every time I sat down to write Boychuk’s dialogue.

Lasty, I think Dane DeHaan would make a perfect Detective Ritter. There is something about his small stature and the look of distain that he’s mastered that I think would be a great fit for a bright young cop looking to make a name for himself.
Visit Tamara L. Miller's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Sherry Rankin's "The Killing Plains"

Sherry Rankin grew up in New Jersey where she became an early and avid reader of mystery fiction. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and currently lives in Abilene, Texas where she has taught writing and literature at a local university for twenty years.

She has written scholarly articles and worked as an editorial consultant, manuscript reader and ghostwriter, but her avocation has always been creative writing.

Her novel, Strange Fire, was shortlisted for the 2017 Daniel Goldsmith First Novel Prize and won the 2017 CWA Debut Dagger Award.

Here Rankin dreamcasts an adaptation of her debut thriller, The Killing Plains:
The Killing Plains is set in the fictional town of Crescent Bluff, a tiny backwater place nestled in the bleak desert landscape of West Texas. It’s true cowboy country, with more cattle than people and more rattlesnakes than cattle—a place still haunted by the spirit of the Wild West and by atrocities past and present.

Houston detective Colly Newland hates the place, but when her former mother-in-law, the matriarch of the powerful Newland family, summons her to Crescent Bluff to investigate a series of particularly heinous murders in which a family member is implicated, Colly complies. She feels responsible for the death of her husband and daughter, and she wants to pay her emotional debt to the Newlands so she can turn her back on them forever.

Colly is a determined, sarcastic, resilient, no-nonsense person driven by a powerful inner moral integrity; she has a big heart, as well, which makes her more vulnerable than she likes, so she hides it behind a tough exterior. My dream actress to play Colly would be Kate Winslet, who seems capable of executing any accent to perfection. I was blown away by her performance in the HBO series Mare of Easttown and would love to see what she could do with the character of Colly in a movie version of The Killing Plains.

Matthew McConaughey would be ideal in the role of Russ Newland. He’s the easy-going local police chief and also the twin brother of Colly’s late husband; Russ is a peacemaker who is trying (with mixed success) to balance the competing demands of family solidarity and his duty as a lawman.

For Avery, the bitter, hard-edged younger rookie cop—I can’t imagine anyone better than Aubrey Plaza. Hilary Swank would nail the role as Colly’s sister-in-law Brenda Newland. For matriarch Iris Newland, the spider in the center of the family web—Sigourney Weaver. For the brilliant cosmopolitan child psychologist Niall Shaw, Idris Elba.
Visit Sherry Rankin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, February 9, 2025

Allison Montclair's "An Excellent Thing in a Woman"

Allison Montclair is the author of the Sparks and Bainbridge mysteries, beginning with The Right Sort of Man, the American Library Association Reading List Council's Best Mystery of 2019. Under her real name, she has written more mystery novels and a damn good werewolf book, as well as short stories in many genres in magazines and anthologies. She is also an award-winning librettist and lyricist with several musicals to her credit that have been performed or workshopped across the USA. She currently lives in New York City where she also practiced as a criminal defense attorney.

Here Montclair dreamcasts an adaptation of her latest novel, An Excellent Thing in a Woman:
The Sparks and Bainbridge series features a pair of female protagonists in 1946 London, both in their late twenties. Iris Sparks is short and brunette, Gwen Bainbridge tall and blond. My mental casting of them draws on British films of the period, more centered on their voices than their appearances because they are constantly talking inside my head.

My model for Iris was the young Glynis Johns, most notable for The Court Jester with Danny Kaye, where she was funny and drop-dead gorgeous. She was also possessed of a distinctive throaty voice that I was lucky to hear live some twenty years after that film when she was the first to sing “Send In The Clowns” on Broadway in A Little Night Music.

While I had no contemporary counterparts for Gwen in terms of her above-average height, I did summon up some of the cool British blondes of the times, particularly Madeleine Carroll of The 39 Steps, but with a thought or two thrown in the direction of Deborah Kerr vocally.

Who would I cast today? At the time I began writing the series, the height contrast combined with the talent suggested Jenna Coleman and Elizabeth Debicki, both terrific actresses with a full foot separating them. I would have loved to see them interacting on the screen together. Another possibility for Iris: Jessica Brown Findlay, most noted for the doomed Sybil Crawley in Downton Abbey, a terrific actress who could bring Iris’s intensity. And an interesting choice was suggested when a possible screenwriter for the series proposed making Gwen Anglo- Indian: Jameela Jamil, who blew me away in The Good Place and is an imposing 5’11”.

The heights are superficial characteristics, of course, and yet Iris’s determination to learn martial arts may have stemmed in part from her desire to compensate for not being taken seriously not just as a woman in that period, but a short one as well. And Gwen’s position in the other end of the bell curve both separates her in her social circles and can surprise and intimidate the men she encounters.

All I can say is, let’s turn this into something and cast these ladies before we all get too old! But I’m sure there are some up-and-comers ready to take on these roles.
Visit Alan Gordon's website.

The Page 69 Test: An Excellent Thing in a Woman.

Q&A with Allison Montclair.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Megan Chance's "Glamorous Notions"

Megan Chance is the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of more than twenty novels, including A Dangerous Education, A Splendid Ruin, Bone River, and An Inconvenient Wife. She and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest.

Here Chance dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Glamorous Notions:
Glamorous Notions takes place in 1950s Rome and Hollywood during the Cold War, where propaganda and communist plots were all the rage in real life and the movies, and my costume designer heroine handles movie star scandals with aplomb even as she hides her own. It was only natural that I would have actors cast in my head as I wrote it. The entire story is one big set-piece, with the streets of Rome, movie studio sound stages, and famous Los Angeles restaurants as its backdrops. I think it would lend itself very well to the movies.

I needed an actress who could go from unassuming to confident and beautiful, and for that I ended up with Florence Pugh, who can frankly play anything. I thought she was a great pick to take on my Elsie Gruner/Lena Taylor, who transforms herself from a pig-farmer’s daughter to the most-requested costume designer in Hollywood.

For Lena’s best friend in Rome, the mysterious, chameleon like woman who changes Lena’s look and life, and plunges her into a danger Lena doesn’t realize until far too late, I chose Jodie Comer, an actress I love. I’ve loved her since the White Princess, and Killing Eve only cemented that love. She can play deceptive and bewitching with one hand tied behind her back.

As for Lena’s screenwriter fiancé, I needed someone who could do both vulnerability and charisma, who struggles with his wish to change the world, his inner anger, his self-confidence and doubt—the things every writer struggles with. For that, I chose Oscar Isaac.

Flavio, the famous costume designer who takes on Lena as his assistant, who is aristocratic, uber-talented, and whose own flaws bring him down, was either Jeremy Irons or Daniel Day Lewis, depending on the day.

Well, I can dream, can’t I?
Visit Megan Chance's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Splendid Ruin.

The Page 69 Test: A Splendid Ruin.

Q&A with Megan Chance.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Education.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Education.

Writers Read: Megan Chance (February 2023).

Writers Read: Megan Chance.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, February 2, 2025

Jacqueline Faber's "The Department"

Jacqueline Faber is an author and freelance writer. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Emory University, where she was the recipient of a Woodruff Scholarship, and taught in the Expository Writing Program at New York University, where she received an award for excellence in teaching. She studied philosophy in Bologna, Italy, and received a dissertation grant from Freie University in Berlin, Germany. Faber writes across genres, including thrillers, rom-coms, and essays. Her work explores questions about memory, loss, language, and desire. Steeped in philosophical, psychological, and literary themes, her writing is grounded in studies of character. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.

Here Faber dreamcasts an adaptation of her debut novel, The Department:
The Department is set in an unnamed Southern university town. Imagine a vivid green lawn, manicured hedges where new buds emerge in pinks and whites, cut-off shorts and tank tops at the first signs of spring. The kind of lawn where you can be central, a game of hacky sack, lunch on the grass, students studying for tests on the benches, peals of laughter lifting into the outstretched arms of trees. Surrounding the quad are brick buildings, windows that peer down, to see but not be seen, a voyeur behind a pane of glass.

Two lead characters hold this fictional world aloft. A philosophy professor, Neil Weber, whose life is imploding. His wife has left him for someone else in the department. His work has stalled and in its place, an intellectual (and existential) lethargy has crept in. Mark Ruffalo could nail this performance, delivering the right combination of charm and despair. A soul we can root for, but not without judgment.

The other protagonist, Lucia Vanotti, is a student who has gone missing. As readers, we follow her through the year leading up to her disappearance. She is reckless and brilliant, wrestling with the ghosts of her past, an early childhood trauma that leads her down dark and treacherous paths. The right actress would possess a wild and exuberant sense of youth, but also a wizened and world-weary perspective. At once jaded and wistful. Jenna Ortega could capture these seemingly contradictory demands.
Visit Jacqueline Faber's website.

--Marshal Zeringue