Sophie Littlefield's "A Bad Day for Pretty"

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Sophie Littlefield grew up in rural Missouri. Her first novel, A Bad Day for Sorry, was an Edgar Award Finalist and is shortlisted for an Anthony, Barry, and Macavity Award. It won an RT Book Award for Best First Mystery and has been named to lists of the year's best mystery debuts by the Chicago Sun-Times and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The second novel in the series, A Bad Day for Pretty, is now available in bookstores.

Here Littlefield proposes her picks for some of the primary characters in an adaptation of the books:

I recently spent a little time daydreaming about who would play the male leads in my mystery series. The thing that makes the exercise interesting is that they are all in their fifties. Among your middle-aged actors, you’ve got your hot-at-any-age tabloid darlings like Viggo Mortensen, and on the other hand there’s this whole regular-guy backlash, almost a defiant “We’re here, we drink beer, get used to it!” sort of thing.

(Of course this is hardly new; it would be far more interesting if women would step up and give this a try. But middle-aged women in Hollywood are already swimming upstream, so I don’t know if we need to burden them with any additional impossible challenges.)

I’m not so interested in the hot guys (I mean, give me a night out and a few drinks and I’m as interested as the next gal, but I’m speaking in the context of the book) – I’m looking for what I guess is called a character actor. (A confusing term; shouldn’t every actor be a character actor?) Someone whose features and general mien convey a certain sense that fits the character.

Here’s what I came up with:

* Sheriff Goat Jones, Stella’s main love interest, is for sure J.K. Simmons (the dad from Juno)

* B.J., bartender and Stella’s occasional crush, could be played by Tim Allen, if he’d put on a few pounds for the role

* Jelloman Nunn, Stella’s ne’er-do-well good friend/big brother figure would be played perfectly by character actor Mark Boone Jr.

Learn more about the books and author at Sophie Littlefield's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: A Bad Day for Sorry.

The Page 69 Test: A Bad Day for Pretty.

--Marshal Zeringue