Poets & Writers Theater

The Rhythm Section (HarperCollins, 2000), Mark Burnell’s first novel in his series featuring international spy Stephanie Patrick, has been adapted into a film. Directed by Reed Morano, the thriller about a woman who goes undercover as an assassin after her entire family is killed in an orchestrated plane crash stars Blake Lively, Jude Law, and Sterling K. Brown.

The Earthquake Bird (Picador, 2001), the debut mystery novel by British author Susanna Jones, has been adapted into a feature film directed by Wash Westmoreland. The psychological thriller follows a young expat in 1989 Tokyo who is accused of murder when her friend goes missing and stars Riley Keough, Naoki Kobayashi, Kenichi Masuda, Kiki Sukezane, and Alicia Vikander.

Dublin Murders is a BBC television adaptation of the first two novels in Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad mystery series, In the Woods (Viking, 2007) and The Likeness (Viking, 2008), which follows two detectives investigating homicides in contemporary Dublin. Adapted by Sarah Phelps, the eight-episode crime show stars Moe Dunford, Sarah Greene, Killian Scott, and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor.

The Good Liar (HarperCollins, 2016), the debut novel by Nicholas Searle about a wealthy widow who crosses paths with a seasoned con artist, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Bill Condon, the film stars Ian McKellen, Helen Mirren, and Russell Tovey.

What would a mashup book series by Lee Child look like? In this humorous video, Child, the author most recently of Past Tense (Delacorte Press, 2018), presents potential mashup titles featuring Jack Reacher, the protagonist of his crime thriller series.