D. M. Rowell's "Never Name the Dead"

Like her protagonist Mud, D.M. Rowell (Koyh Mi O Boy Dah) comes from a long line of Kiowa Storytellers. After a thirty-two-year career spinning stories for Silicon Valley startups and corporations with a few escapes creating award-winning independent documentaries, Rowell started a new chapter writing mysteries that share information about her Plains Indian tribe, the Kiowas.

Here the author shares some insights on an adaptation of her new novel, Never Name the Dead:

As I wrote Never Name the Dead, I did think of the book becoming a movie one day. But since I never imagined my book would be published, I thought it would be me producing the feature film and submitting it to film festivals. I’ve produced independent documentaries in the past, and had always wanted to create a feature film. My book seemed the perfect vehicle.

My novel is a brisk mystery, all taking place in less than twenty-four hours. I like the fast pace of the book and would want that energy in the movie.The adventure starts with Silicon Valley professional Mae Sawpole receiving a call for help from her traditional Kiowa grandfather. The call sends Mae on an unexpected spiritual quest as she returns to her childhood home in the former Kiowa, Comanche, Apache Reservation area of Oklahoma. There she’s called Mud, a childhood nickname that stuck. Upon Mud’s arrival, she finds her grandfather missing, a precious Kiowa artifact stolen, illegal fracking and a body. Mud faces angry tribal members, old enemies, wildcat frackers and a charging buffalo in her hunt for a murderer.

While I envisioned Never Name the Dead as a movie, I never put a face or name to the ideal actors to play the different characters. I always saw Mud as a Kiowa or other Native actor, not the faces I typically saw on screen. If I produced the movie, I planned to reach out to locals in the Oklahoma area to find the right Mud and Denny.

While I didn’t have a specific actor in mind, I knew the spirit I wanted for Mud. The type of actress I want to see play Mud would be similar to Zendaya’s portrayal of MJ in the Spiderman movies. MJ is an independent and strong multiracial woman. She projects quiet strength and confidence. These are characteristics I want to come across in the portrayal of Mud, while also showing the character as a bit of a klutz that can easily laugh at herself. Mud can do amazing things one moment and fall over her tangled feet the next.

Visit D. M. Rowell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Emily J. Edwards's "Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man"

Emily Edwards earned her degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College and took the long road to becoming an author, working for over a decade as a wine and spirits journalist, radio producer, and creator of the podcast, F*ckbois of Literature. She currently resides in Connecticut with her husband, and several quadrupeds.

Here Edwards dreamcasts her new novel, Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man:

The best part about writing a detective story during the 1950s is getting to immerse your main characters into one of the most interesting and tumultuous times of American media. Daydreaming about my characters on the silver screen was as natural as having those same characters talk about Humphrey Bogart taking a turn in The Maltese Falcon.

Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man is a mid-century, Private Investigator murder mystery. Viviana is the Girl Friday to New York City’s best P.I., Tommy Fortuna. One day, they gain a new client, the industrialist Tallmadge Blackstone, who has asked Tommy to trail his young daughter, Tallulah. The next day, a body shows up in Tommy’s office, and Tommy is M.I.A. Viviana takes on the cases in an effort to keep the police from pinning the murder on her boss.

When I was writing, it was most important for me to imagine not who was going to play my leading lady, Viviana Valentine, but who was going to play the supporting cast. While Viv was very hard to #DreamCast for a film version (but you’ll see who I chose eventually!), the supporting characters were not.

First and foremost, I knew that the character of Tommy Fortuna, Viv’s boss, best friend, and private investigator, had to have that effortless cool and a rugged masculinity, but more than anything, he believes in Viviana and her capabilities. I needed someone who had his own identity and sure looked good in a suit, but would watch Viviana work with a smile on his face and awe in my heart– but also be able to deliver a one-liner without flinching. In my mind, Dustin Milligan, better known as Ted from Schitt's Creek, made an excellent Tommy Fortuna.

Secondly, I had to cast one of Tommy’s clients, a mean sonofab**** who has oodles of money and looked like he was up to no good. His name is Tallmadge Blackstone and at one point in the novel, he looks very large and menacing. Now, most actors are not that large (I lived in LA for 15 years and at 5’10”, I towered over most celebrities I saw on the street!), but without a doubt the perfect casting is Joe Manganiello, best known from True Blood. That’s a man who is built like a brick wall and could command a room!

Tallmadge Blackstone’s daughter, Tallulah, plays an essential role in the story, and there’s no one who could be her better than Barbie Ferreira from Euphoria. Tally is a fresh 18 years old, spoiled rotten, but knows exactly how people view her and what people want from her. She’s a curvaceous beauty who is frequently trapped by gossip magazine photographers and would be eaten alive by the public if she wasn’t such a force of nature by inclination.

And now, we get to the main character, Viviana Valentine. Viv is defined by her sense of humor, her ability to let things roll off her like water on a duck’s back. She gets internally frustrated but always has a comeback ready on her lips. She’s not a glamorous girl, like Tallulah, but charms the socks off people without thinking twice. I love her so much, and I cannot imagine anyone playing her but: Kaitlyn Dever, the breakout comedian from Booksmart.

Collectively, I feel like this casting best captures the essence of Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man. The book is a comedy in its head and detective story in its heart. I hope this helps readers better visualize the action of the novel!

Visit Emily J. Edwards's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Debra Bokur's "The Lava Witch"

Debra Bokur is the author of The Dark Paradise Mysteries series from Kensington. She’s traveled the world as a writer, journalist and staff editor for various national media outlets, with more than 2,000 print pieces carrying her byline to date. Her work has garnered multiple awards, including a 2015 Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism. For more than a decade, she served as the poetry editor at a national literary journal, and her poetry and short fiction have been widely published. Among her favorite writing credits are a series of original literary essays commissioned by the Celestial Seasonings tea company that appeared on the artfully illustrated boxes of ten separate tea flavors. She continues to travel in her capacity as the Global Researcher and Writer for the Association for Safe International Road Travel, and as a monthly columnist for Global Traveler magazine.

Here Bokur dreamcasts an adaptation of The Lava Witch, the third Dark Paradise mystery:

The Lava Witch has a slightly larger cast of characters than the first two books in the Dark Paradise Mystery series, and it wasn’t easy to narrow down some of my imaginary casting choices.

That said, I’d love to see the character of Charlie Holmes played by young actor Jace Norman, who appeared in Nickelodeon’s popular show Henry Danger; or possibly by Tanner Buchanan, who showed range and potential in the political thriller Designated Survivor.

For Maya Holmes, actress Isabella Gomez (of the Netflix series One Day at a Time) would be my choice. And Don Cheadle is hands-down my pick for Dr. Davos O’Connor. Cheadle has performed in more films than there’s room here to list, and I’ve admired every one of his performances. And, since this venue allows my dreamcasting to be as fabulous as I’d like, I’m going to pretend that he’s read The Lava Witch and we’ve already had lunch so he could tell me in person his take on the role.

For scientist Byron Coolidge, actor Jason Ralph—who starred in the series The Magicians and who also had a recurring role in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel—would be excellent. Robert Sheehan (Umbrella Academy, Misfits) is a natural for the part of Vance Sousa, while either actress Liana Liberato or Maisie Williams would no doubt do a great job as Gloria Marsh.

Jody Phillips could be played by Jaime Ray Newman (Veronica Mars, Bones, Eureka, The Time Traveler’s Wife) or by Lauren Lapkus (Big Bang Theory, Orange Is the New Black). I’d round out my casting with Maggie Q (The Divergent Series) as Officer Jennifer Kama, and either Charlie Plummer or Lucas Hedges as Trey Carter.

Visit Debra Bokur's website.

Q&A with Debra Bokur.

My Book, The Movie: The Fire Thief.

My Book, The Movie: The Bone Field.

--Marshal Zeringue

Briana Una McGuckin's "On Good Authority"

Briana Una McGuckin lives in a charmingly strange old house in Connecticut. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Connecticut State University and an MLS from Long Island University. Among other places, her work appears in the Bram Stoker Award–nominated horror anthology Not All Monsters, the modern Gothic horror anthology In Somnio, and The Lost Librarian’s Grave anthology. McGuckin has spastic diplegic cerebral palsy, a perhaps concerningly large collection of perfume oils, and a fascination with all things Victorian.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of her debut novel, On Good Authority:

On Good Authority is a Victorian Gothic/Romantic Suspense story in which a lady’s maid called Marian Osley must teach a terrible master the difference between servitude and surrender—and confront her dark desire for the footman, Valentine Hobbs, along the way.

I don’t generally cast people in my head as I’m writing, but when the book was done I did happen to see an image on my Google home screen of Timothée Chalamet attending some event in connection with Little Women. He was in a dark vest and white shirt, and I had to do a double-take. I may have said, out loud to no one, “Valentine Hobbs?”

Since, in conversation about who would play the leads in my dreams, I said I would put Anya Taylor-Joy in the role of Marian. When I added that Chalamet would make a good Valentine, the person I was speaking with said I was describing a “sort of Tim Burton Gothic.” And that’s exactly right, I think. I would want it to be darkly beautiful like that, and rich, in the vein of Sweeney Todd.

I could also see it handled as a dark fairytale by Guillermo del Toro. I loved The Shape of Water, and I think there are similarities in the themes, the misunderstood love story and the way that what is truly evil hides behind the guise of normalcy, what we’ve been trained to see as right and virtuous.

There’s Mr. and Mrs. Bornholdt, master and mistress of the manor house, to cast as well—both of them running hot and cold, but never at the same time or for the same reasons. I think Emily Blunt would be a fantastic Mrs. Bornholdt, because she has the range, going from severe and strict but also to a place of secret warmth, sometimes.

As for the master and villain, Mr. Bornholdt, I’d be really excited to see Dacre Montgomery’s take on it because, well: Mr. Bornholdt may be a monster, but he is an attractive one, and he knows it. He leverages his conventional beauty to his advantage, to ensnare people. I think that’s important to the story, to that way in which real danger can hide behind what’s pretty, as I was saying about The Shape of Water. Montgomery really brought a magnetism to Billy in Stranger Things which would be good for the villain here, too.

Visit Briana Una McGuckin's website.

Q&A with Briana Una McGuckin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Roger A. Canaff's "City Dark"

Roger A. Canaff is a former special victims prosecutor and author of crime thrillers including Bleed Through, second in the ADA Alex Greco series and the 2020 IBPA Benjamin Franklin silver award winner for Mystery and Thriller.

Here Canaff dreamcasts an adaptation of his newest novel, City Dark:

City Dark is a legal and psychological thriller set in 2017 New York City, but also tracks the night of the NYC blackout in July of 1977. The protagonist, Joe DeSantos, was abandoned by his mother on that night, leaving him and his older brother Robbie to navigate the city to safety. 40 years later as the story begins, Joe is a brilliant and hard-charging prosecutor but with a terrible drinking problem. He finds himself accused of two brutal murders (including his disappeared mother) and due to alcoholic blackouts has no memory of the nights of the murders. The book tracks both the mystery of Joe’s current situation and the terrible night from his childhood that may be reaching back for him in the present day.

I have envisioned George Clooney to play Joe DeSantos, mostly because Clooney brilliantly played an attorney in a desperate situation in Michael Clayton. Clooney is about the right age, has a similar gestalt, and has a deep, confident voice I imagine would be perfect for Joe. More than any contemporary actor I can think of, Clooney seems to possess the streetwise, city-hardened, but still boyish and charming aura that I think would be perfect for an on-screen adaptation of my protagonist.

Another important character is Aideen Bradigan, a former colleague of Joe’s who takes his case as a defense attorney and struggles to unravel the mysteries of both past and present along with him. For this role I would love to see Kate Winslet. Winslet’s performance in HBO’s Mare of Eastown, where Winslet, a British actor, nevertheless melted perfectly into a Philly-area detective right down to the flawless accent, was genius. Bradigan’s character is Irish-American, she is a cop’s widow, and she is tough, smart and stoic. I think Winslet would nail the character and bring out the best of her onscreen.

Finally, I’d love to see Ben Mendelsohn as Robbie DeSantos, Joe’s haunted, destructive and tragic older brother. Mendelsohn’s brilliant performance in the Netflix series Bloodline as the troubled, black sheep bother Danny Rayburn is primarily why, but I have seen Mendelsohn in several other roles and he is always incredibly natural and compelling.

Visit Roger A. Canaff's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Danielle Binks's "The Year the Maps Changed"

Danielle Binks is an author and literary agent from Melbourne, Australia. The Year the Maps Changed was her debut novel and has been shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award and was a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book. She has since written her first young adult novel, The Monster of Her Age, and has edited and contributed to Begin, End, Begin, an anthology of new Australian young adult writing, which won an Australian Book Industry Award.

Here Binks dreamcasts an adaptation of The Year the Maps Changed:

Since my book is Middle Grade and there's a lot of kid-characters, I'd love to do an open-casting call and find some new talent. It still boggles that they did that for To Kill a Mockingbird and found *the* Scout in Mary Badham! As for Luca, Fred's father - I have this idea that he is very much Eric Bana. Hands down. I think the fact that Eric Bana's father is Croatian means he'd also have a lot of background knowledge about the unrest in Eastern Europe during the 80s and 90s, and the Kosovo War conflict borne out of the dissolving of the former Yugoslavia. That background I think would really open the role up for him, even as he's playing the local police officer of the small Australian town where Kosovar Albanian refugees arrive - I think he'd bring some critical empathy underlying to the character.

And as for directors? I could go a very Hollywood hype model and say I'd love the Duffer Brothers to bring some Stranger Things magic to the big-screen, but I'd much prefer to keep an Australian perspective, so my dream would be Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland (she did the Black Widow movie, and one of my favourite indie films in Somersault - so I think she'd tow a good line between cinematic and thoughtful, and I think she'd be a wonderful creator for young actors to work with especially.) I would trust that Shortland would bring dynamism to the weighty female roles within especially; young Fred learning that the world stretches beyond her back door, Anika her almost-stepmother who is not at all trope-fueled but rather complex and dealing with her own grief, and Nora - the Kosovar Albanian refugee, who is a pregnant mother when her homeland is thrown into turmoil and she's sent far away.

Visit Danielle Binks's website.

Q&A with Danielle Binks.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jason Mosberg's "My Dirty California"

Jason Mosberg lives in Los Angeles where he works as a novelist, screenwriter, and TV creator.

Here he dreamcasts an adaptation of his new novel, My Dirty California:

I've definitely thought about the prospect of My Dirty California getting turned into a movie or a TV show. I actually wrote the pilot script before I wrote the novel. I work in Los Angeles as a screenwriter and TV creator. I decided to turn My Dirty California into a novel when the pandemic started.

I'd love to see My Dirty California get made as a limited series. It would be too difficult to make it as a movie. I've thought about actors and even have some actors reading the book as we speak! I can't say who my first choices are because this will live on the web forever and I don't want actors who eventually play the parts to read this and feel like they were my second choice.

So to make it interesting, I'll pick actors who are older or dead. I think River Phoenix would have made a great Marty, a twentysomething drifter who gets killed but lives on through the book via hundreds of video log entries he left behind. I think a young Robert Redford would make a great Jody, the character who's looking into his brother Marty's death. The character of Penelope is a thirtysomething woman who is looking for proof we're living in a simulation. I love casting comedic actors in dramatic roles. (Vince Gilligan is the master at this.) I think Mary Tyler Moore in her 30s would have been a fantastic Pen. The character of Tiph has been described as a young, pulpy, Black, female version of Indiana Jones. I think a young Pam Grier would be excellent.

Hopefully one day soon, you'll see who my dream cast is!

Visit Jason Mosberg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Marcie R. Rendon's "Sinister Graves"

Marcie Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, a Pinckley Prize-winning author, playwright, poet, freelance writer, and a community arts activist. Rendon was awarded the McKnight Distinguished Artist Award for 2020. She is a speaker on Native issues, leadership, and writing. The second novel in her Cash Blackbear mystery series, Girl Gone Missing, was nominated for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award. Rendon was recognized as a 50 over 50 Change-maker by Minneapolis AARP and Pollen in 2018.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Sinister Graves, the third Cash Blackbear mystery:

Cash Blackbear is a vulnerable, yet tough-as-nails, resilient 19-year-old Ojibwe woman who has aged out of foster care in northern Minnesota. She lives on her own, works as a farm-laborer driving tractor and beet trucks while attending college; thanks to a push from her friend and mentor, Sheriff Wheaton. When not working, or shooting pool, or going to school, she helps Wheaton solve crimes that occur all to frequently in the isolation of rural farm and reservation country.

Readers love Cash and the number one comment I get, after being told she needs to quit drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, is that Cash needs her own TV series or movie. I can imagine Paulina Alexis, of Willie Jack fame from the hit Hulu series Reservation Dogs, being cast as Cash. If Julia Garner of Ozark fame were Native, she would also make a great Cash Blackbear. Gary Farmer, also seen in Reservation Dogs, would make a believable Sheriff Wheaton. However, if Dallas Goldtooth would agree to a serious character depiction he might be more age appropriate to play Wheaton.

Cash Blackbear appeared over my right shoulder as I was working on what I thought was goig to be a chicklit novel. Cash, young Ojibwe woman with long dark hair past her waist, shook her head, said, ‘no, no, no’ and proceeded to tell stories through me that have become the Cash Blackbear series. Just as I visualize her, her story begs to put on screen.

Visit Marcie R. Rendon's website.

The Page 69 Test: Sinister Graves.

Q&A with Marcie R. Rendon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tasha Alexander's "Secrets of the Nile"

Tasha Alexander is the author of the New York Times bestselling Lady Emily mystery series.

The daughter of two philosophy professors, she studied English Literature and Medieval History at the University of Notre Dame. She and her husband, novelist Andrew Grant, live on a ranch in southeastern Wyoming.

Here Alexander dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Secrets of the Nile, the 16th Lady Emily mystery:

When I’m writing—or reading, for that matter—I rarely picture actors as characters in the book. I suppose it’s because I’m more verbal than visual, which isn’t to say that I don’t have images of them in my head. It’s just that they’re truly imagined rather than based on actual people, and I often leave the descriptions of them vague, so that readers can come up with their own ideas of what they look like.

Even so, it’s deliciously fun to think about casting actors as my characters. If Secrets of the Nile became a movie, Jennifer Lawrence would make a fantastic Emily. Readers have told me for years they’d love to see Henry Cavill play Colin. Kenneth Branagh would be the perfect Lord Deeley and Thomasin McKenzie a great Kat. For Colin’s mother, I picture Judi Dench.

Visit Tasha Alexander's website.

Q&A with Tasha Alexander.

Writers Read: Tasha Alexander.

The Page 69 Test: Secrets of the Nile.

--Marshal Zeringue

Karen Odden's "Under a Veiled Moon"

Karen Odden earned her Ph.D. in English from New York University and subsequently taught literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has contributed essays to numerous books and journals, written introductions for Victorian novels in the Barnes & Noble classics series, and edited for the journal Victorian Literature and Culture. Her previous novels, also set in 1870s London, have won awards for historical fiction and mystery.

Here Odden dreamcasts an adaption of her new novel, Under a Veiled Moon, her second Inspector Corravan Mystery:

Inspector Michael Corravan is 31 years old, nearly six feet tall and fourteen stone, with dark hair and Irish blue eyes. A former thief, bare-knuckles boxer, and dockworker from seedy Whitechapel, he’s quick with his fists and his knife, and he came out of Whitechapel understanding that being strong, decisive, and a rescuer kept him alive. These are all excellent traits for a Scotland Yard Inspector. But as Corravan’s love interest Belinda Gale explains, a little empathy and vulnerability, a memory of what it was like to be powerless and furious in the face of unyielding and abusive power such as he experienced on the London docks, will make Corravan a better policeman. For Michael Corravan, I’d love a young Hugh Jackman, with a mix of self-reliance and passion for fair play that he creates for the role of Drover in Baz Luhrman’s Australia.

My heroine, Belinda Gale, is a playwright and novelist, who once made a promise to her father, on his deathbed, that she would thoroughly vet anyone before she married. She is poised (most definitely not “spunky”), intelligent, well-mannered and well-connected, with a house in Belgravia where she holds weekly soirées. She provides the EQ to Corravan’s street smarts, and she is not afraid to tell him when he is steering into dark waters. I’d love Emma Watson for this part, or perhaps a younger Jennifer Connelly. (I’m thinking of her performance in A Beautiful Mind, which was spot on.)

Corravan’s superior, Sir Howard C. E. Vincent, the new director of Scotland Yard, is (like Corravan) in his early 30s, the second son of a baronet, a former newspaperman, well-heeled and well-educated. In the aftermath of a scandal involving four Yard inspectors who were convicted of taking bribes from con men, Vincent was brought in to sweep the Yard clean of corruption, which he did, despite never having served in uniform or solved a case. (Needless to say, his appointment initially didn’t go over so well with the Yard men who’d come up through the tough uniformed divisions like Lambeth.) Fair-haired Vincent can appear a bit stiff and proper, with his emotions tucked away, but he is deeply ethical and truly wants to make the Yard the best it can be. Dan Stevens (Matthew, Downton Abbey) might be a good fit for him.

Visit Karen Odden's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Karen Odden and Rosy.

My Book, The Movie: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Duet.

Q&A with Karen Odden.

My Book, The Movie: Down a Dark River..

--Marshal Zeringue