We have been so excited to learn that JK Rowling‘s Cormoran Strike novels, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, are going to become a BBC TV crime series!
Announcing the news herself on Twitter, the author said: “My friend @RGalbraith’s first novel is going to be a TV drama on @BBCOne. He’s very excited, but expressing it with characteristic silence.” “I am exactly as excited as he is.”
The Cuckoo’s Calling will be the first book adapted for BBC One, with filming set to begin in 2015. The author herself will collaborate on the project, and casting for the lead role is under way. Strike is described in the books as “large and dark, with dense, short, curly hair that had receded a little from the high, domed forehead that topped a boxer’s broad nose and thick, surly brows. His jaw was grimy with stubble and bruise-coloured shadows enlarged his eyes.” (Personally I think a beefy Benedict Cumberbatch or Elyes Gabel would be perfect!)
In The Cuckoo’s Calling Strike, a former army officer turned private investigator, is called in to solve the mystery of a model who falls to her death from a Mayfair balcony in a supposed suicide. Her brother, however, thinks it could be murder.
In great news for fans Rowling has recently stated at a writers festival that she would like to turn the Cormoran Strike novels into a series that would run even longer than Harry Potter. (Insert bookish fangirl squeal here!)
“One of the things I love about this genre is unlike Harry Potter, where there was a through line, where there was an overarching story, a beginning and end, you are talking about discreet stories. So while a detective lives, you can keep giving him cases.”
Her other non-Harry Potter book, The Casual Vacancy, has also been adapted for BBC One and will be broadcast in February.
