ITV commissions Debbie O’Malley’s mystery series

THE GUILTY, an original 3 x 60-minute drama series written by Debbie O'Malley (LAW & ORDER; UK, CASE HISTORIES, SILK), has gone into production. Starring Tamsin Grieg (EPISODES, FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER) as DCI Maggie Brand, the series follows an investigation into the death of a little boy after his body is discovered five years after he went missing. The drama, produced by Hartswood Films, will be set over two time periods - the time of the boy's disappearance and the time of the investigation.

The boy's parents, played by Katherine Kelly and Darren Boyd, hold a barbeque on the night their son vanishes, and a violent, alcohol-fuelled row with neighbours that night causes rifts and suspicion within the community. DCI Brand, stricken with terrible morning sickness at the time of the disappearance, is back in action when the boy's body is found, and is determined to find out what happened to him.

The show was commissioned by Steve November at ITV, and will be directed by Ed Bazalgette. Elaine Cameron will produce, and Beryl Vertue is executive producer. Beryl says of the project: "We're delighted to be working with ITV again on The Guilty and have been buoyed by its enthusiasm for the scripts and the fantastic casting."

THE GUILTY is due to be transmitted in Autumn of this year.

Lyndall Gordon to feature in ITV’s Bronte sisters documentary

Lyndall Gordon will feature on ITV's The Brilliant Bronte Sisters documentary, presented by Sheila Hancock, which sets out to debunk myths about the sisters' lives while examining the enduring appeal of their novels. Lyndall Gordon's biography CHARLOTTE BRONTE: A PASSIONATE LIFE is published in the UK by Virago.

Produced by Blakeway North for ITV Perspectives series, this captivating documentary is a Radio Times Recommendation and reveals Sheila Hancock's passion for the Brontë sisters, as she searches for answers about English Literature's most brilliant family: "How did three Victorian spinsters who spent most of their lives in a remote parsonage on the edge of the moors come to write books that I find shocking, erotic, profoundly moving and quite wonderful?"

In the programme, Lyndall Gordon discusses with Sheila Hancock the series of letters Charlotte Bronte wrote to her former teacher, Monsieur Heger, after leaving Brussels.

Lyndall says in the film of the letters, which are kept in the British Library in London: "They are probably the most important relics of Charlotte Bronte. They tell us about her feelings for a man who was her mentor at a crucial point in her life.

As well as her book on Charlotte Bronte, Lyndall Gordon has written acclaimed biographies of Henry James, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Mary Wollstonecraft and Emily Dickinson, all published by Virago. LIVES LIKE LOADED GUNS: Emily Dickinson and her Family Feuds was nominated for the Duff Cooper Prize in 2011 and has also been published in the US by Viking and in Italy by Fazi.

Praise for Lyndall Gordon:

'Literary bloodhound and superbly eloquent chronicler.' -- Booklist

'Lyndall Gordon is a rare phenomenon: a biographer whose preoccupations and authorial career reveal a flowering towards imaginative truth.' -- Candia McWilliam, Herald

'Gordon is one of the best biographers writing today.' -- Catherine Hollis, Sacramento Book Review

'A gifted storyteller.' -- Carmela Ciuraru, Miami Herald

'Lyndall Gordon is known for the thoroughness of her research and meticulous attention to detail … a fine researcher's eye … an exceptional and unusual mind.' -- Janet van Eeden, The Witness

AGAAT a Best Translated Book Award 2011 finalist!

Marlene van Niekerk's widely acclaimed novel AGAAT is a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award, supported by Amazon.com in the US. The 10 fiction finalists include books translated from 6 different languages and can be viewed here. The awards ceremony will take place in New York City on 29 April, as part of the PEN World Voices Festival.

Marlene van Niekerk has received wide recognition for AGAAT since it was first published in South Africa by Tafelberg  in Afrikaans in 2004, and in English by Tafelberg with Jonathan Ball in 2006.  AGAAT was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2008 and won the South African Sunday Times Literary Award in 2005, and Heyns was awarded Outstanding Translation Award in 2009 as well as the Sol Plaatje Award for Translation in 2008. It was listed as a Best Book in 2010 by both Publisher's Weekly, and Booklist. AGAAT was brought out in the UK by Little Brown in 2007 under the title THE WAY OF THE WOMEN and Tin House published AGAAT under its original title in 2010. Rights have been sold to Gallimard in France, Neri Pozza in Italy, Querido in Holland, and Svante Weyler in Sweden. Film rights are sold to Mutz-Media.

Praise for AGAAT:

'I was immediately mesmerized by Ms. van Niekerk's novel. Its beauty matches its depth and her achievement is as brilliant as it is haunting.' -- Toni Morrison

'Van Niekerk follows the widely lauded TRIOMF with a dark, innovative epic that trudges through the depths of a South African farmwife's soul...Clearly an allegory for race relations in South Africa, the novel succeeds on numerous other grounds: a rich evocation of family dynamics; a chilling portrait of bodily and mental decay; and a successful experiment in combining diaries, the second-person, and stream of consciousness. Van Niekerk marshals it all to evoke the resigned mind of a dying woman who realizes, too late, the horrible mistakes that have made her life a waste.' -- Publishers Weekly starred review

'This novel stuns with its powerful sense of the rigors of farm life, desolation of a failing marriage, and comfort of a long and complex relationship.' -- Vanessa Bush, Booklist starred

Lindsay Shapero’s script TRIGGER selected for 2013 Brit List

The Brit List was created in 2007 as a UK version of the US Black List and aims to draw attention to and stimulate interest in some of the top projects that have yet to make it to the screen.

A dark comedy about a teenager who investigates his own suicide, TRIGGER was selected joint third and is currently in development with Met Film Productions and the BFI. Lindsay Shapero is currently working on a number of projects for film and TV, with companies including Warp Films, Origin Pictures, Red Arrow, Exclusive Media and the BBC.

Charles Lambert – Three Books, Two New Publishers

Exhibit A, Angry Robot's crime imprint, have acquired World English Language rights to two novels by Charles Lambert. The first to be published will be THE VIEW FROM THE TOWER, a gripping psychological thriller about friendship, love and betrayal.

In the same week, Scott Pack of The Friday Project acquired UK & BC rights excluding Canada in Lambert's haunting and highly original WITH A ZERO AT ITS HEART, a sequence of short texts, each of exactly 120 words. Arranged by theme, including objects, clothes, sex, danger, travel, work, theft, animals, money, language, among others, these form striking glimpses – comic, tender, shocking, enigmatic – of one man's life.

Charles Lambert is also the author of two novels, LITTLE MONSTERS (Picador 2008) and ANY HUMAN FACE (Picador 2010), praised by Jake Kerridge in the Telegraph as a 'beautifully written crime story that brings to life the Rome that tourists don't see'.

Isobel Dixon remarked that these deals showcase Charles's 'immense talent and versatility'.

THE VIEW FROM THE TOWER and WITH A ZERO AT ITS HEART are both due to be published in early 2014.

Praise for Charles Lambert:

'Charles Lambert is a seriously good writer, one deserving of encouragement and recognition.' -- Beryl Bainbridge
 
'Charles Lambert writes as if his life depends on it. He takes risks at every turn.' -- Hannah Tinti author of THE GOOD THIEF
 
'Lambert is really very good indeed.' -- Scott Pack