My tolerant readers have probably noticed that I talk about books quite a bit. I am engaged in an ongoing (several years now) draw-down of my library. A huge chunk of it was purged, en masse, several years ago and since then I have been nibbling away at it. Reason being, books were taking over our living space.
As much as I love books, I no longer want to live in a library. I want that space available to serve other activities.
Part of the project is assessing various collections. I've collected mystery fiction for a long time and have had full sets of various authors' work. A good number of these have now hit the road - mostly, actually, they've been given to the BH Public Library.
Many of these departed pre-Kindle, so as far as I knew I was really saying goodbye forever! Since the project started, of course, masses of literature has become available in e-formats. Some authors are no longer with us, and their heirs are apparently unconcerned with future sales ... just a note, y'all, you can undoubtedly sell more of these if you negotiate an e-book contract. Just saying.
So ANYWAY, the point I was getting to today is that there is a short series (too short, in my opinion) by Will Thomas featuring a private investigator, Cyrus Barker, and his youthful assistant Thomas Llewelyn. The book titles, for your convenience, are:
- Some Danger Involved;
- To Kingdom Come;
- The Limehouse Text;
- The Hellfire Conspiracy; and
- The Black Hand.
One element of great interest to me is that Mr. Thomas features a different immigrant community in each book. One book, for example, features the Chinese and one features Jewish immigrants.
Because the books are set in Victorian London and revolve around a private investigator, they have an intrinsic appeal for this fan of Sherlock Holmes. The central characters use methods that would be quite familiar to other such fans, and in fact Cyrus Barker seems (to me) to be a clear inspiration for Guy Ritchie's new cinema interpretation of Holmes.
These books, however, would stand quite nicely on their own. And I think Liam Neeson should play Barker, and Daniel Radcliffe should play Llewelyn.
They are physically perfect for the parts, both good actors, and both I think would shine in these characters. Moreover, Mr. Neeson is prime "franchise" material and we already know Mr. Radcliffe can handle a long-term commitment.
I don't know if Mr. Thomas ran out of ideas or if his publisher just didn't want to support the series or what. I could read a lot more of these books before I got tired of the characters, and I would REALLY love to see a movie (or TV - I'm not picky) adaptation.
So if any producers out there know Mr. Radcliffe or Mr. Neeson and would like to jump on the enduring popularity of the Victorian mystery, you know, I would love to write a script for you.