Isabel Booth's "Then He Was Gone"

Isabel Booth is the pen name of Karen Jewell, a former trial attorney and now a writer. She holds an undergraduate degree in English, a Master’s in Business Administration, and a Juris Doctorate degree. When she’s not writing she loves to read, travel, and cook dinner for friends. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband.

Here Booth dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Then He Was Gone:

In Then He Was Gone, six-year-old Henry English goes missing at the end of a family hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. Park ranger Hollis Monroe, a well-worn, gritty, former Montana sheriff, leads the search for Henry and teams up with a local detective to investigate the possibility that he was kidnapped. Monroe is the only character in the book for which I had an actor in mind while writing it: Robert Taylor, who played the role of Walt Longmire, sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming, in the series Longmire. He was brilliant in the show: an old-time lawman in the present day, good at his job, and wise in his ways. He would be my first choice for Monroe.

I would love to see Kate Winslet in the role of Elizabeth English, Henry’s mom. There were so many layers to her performance as small-town cop Mare Sheehan in Mare of Easttown. It would be wonderful to see what she would do with Elizabeth’s relentless focus on finding her son and the grief of losing him.

Alexis LaDay is Elizabeth’s best friend and Henry’s godmother – a hard-driving corporate lawyer, cigarette-smoking former beauty queen, going through life with a swagger and a deep love for the English family. Kelly Reilly would be perfect. She was masterful as Beth Dutton in Yellowstone.

Eddie Marsh is an odious ex-con, obsessed with Elizabeth English for her part in sending him to prison, and relishing her pain in the disappearance of her son. I would pick Gary Oldman for that role. As Jackson Lamb in Slow Horses, he looks like Eddie Marsh to me.

Paul English, Henry’s dad, is complicated. He’s a poet, a loving father, but a bit of a jerk. I’d like to see Sebastian Stan as Paul.

I leave it to the director to round out my dream cast with adorable, precocious boys to play Henry and his older brother Nick.

Visit Isabel Booth's website.

--Marshal Zeringue