Mystery novels don't always make a smooth transition to movies or television because, I believe, the scriptwriters don't respect the source material.
Want proof? Think of Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr novels that turned into the film Burglar with Whoopie Goldberg.
Those books that make the smooth transition to film are because of that respect. Think Gone Baby Gone; the Swedish versions of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; The Town, Shutter Island. And on the smaller screen, there’s the series Dexter on Showtime and Rizzoli & Isles on TNT and just about anything on PBS.
Give TNT more credit for its series of mystery movies based on best-sellers by contemporary authors. These movies are capturing the spirit of the novels and showcasing the plots and characters that readers have long enjoyed.
Just this week it was announced that Lisa Unger’s Fragile has been picked up for this series.
Here are mini reviews of the three movies scheduled for this month.
HIDE: Airs at 9 pm Dec. 6 with frequent encores; based on the novel by Lisa Gardner. The appealing and always watchable Carla Gugino stars as Boston police detective D.D. Warren, a complicated, stoic character who has been in several of Gardner’s best sellers. Gugino perfectly captures D.D.’s aloofness, devotion to the job and her compassion. Much is made of D.D. being blonde in the novels, but we’ll take the dark-haired Gugino any day. D.D. and her team’s investigation of bodies found on a long abandoned mental hospital leads to a young woman who has been a victim of a stalker since her birth. Gardner’s novels straddle are gripping and involving, straddling that line between terrifying and gruesome. The TNT movie captures all this and this viewer hopes to see more Gardner novels on the screen, especially with Gugino and Kevin Alejandro (True Blood) as Det. Bobby Dodge.
SILENT WITNESS: Airs at 9 pm Dec. 7 with frequent encores; based on the novel by Richard North
Patterson. Dermot Mulroney smolders and tight-lips his way as he plays defense attorney Tony Lord who
comes back to his hometown to defend a coach (Michael Cudlitz) accused of murdering one of his students. One reason Tony agrees to help his old friend is because in high school Tony was accused of killing his girlfriend, a murder that was never solved. Patterson’s novel didn’t set new ground as a legal thriller but it was a solid plot that holds up quite well in the film version. Judd Hirsch always brings a level of intelligence to any role and he does that again as Saul Ruben, a close friend and associate of Tony Lord. Silent Witness was one of Patterson’s stand-alone novels and he has plenty more that would make gripping movies.
DECK THE HALLS: Airs at 9 pm Dec. 20 with frequent encores; based on the novel by Mary Higgins Clark and daughter Carol Higgins Clark. This was the first of the mother-daughter series of holiday mysteries that introduced cleaning woman turned private-eye (and lottery winner) Alvirah Meegan (Kathy Najimy) and detective Regan Reilly (Scottie Thompson). In Deck the Hall, the women investigate the kidnapping of Regan’s father and his female driver just before the holidays. Jane Alexander plays Regan’s mother, famed mystery writer Nora Regan Reilly. This series of novels are light and charming with unmemorable but entertaining plots. And that’s exactly what the TNT movie is. But then again, maybe this is what we need for the holidays, but then again, my favorite holiday movie is The Ref.
PHOTOS: Scottie Thompson, Kathy Najimy in Deck the Halls; Dermot Mulroney in Silent Witness. Courtesy TNT