Peggy Webb's Southern Cousins Mystery Series

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Peggy Webb is the author of the popular Southern Cousins Mystery Series. Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times love her latest book, Elvis and the Tropical Double Trouble. She also pens literary fiction as Anna Michaels, and currently she is bringing the classic romances from her early career back to fans as e-books.

Here she muses about the ideal cast for an adaptation of the Southern Cousins books:

I’ve had many fans tell me the comedic Southern Cousins Mystery Series should be made into a movie. In fact, an independent filmmaker is currently pitching it as a TV series! We’ll see how all that goes. A writer girl could go gray waiting for Hollywood. Oh, wait a minute…I’m already going gray.

If I had my ‘druthers, who would I get to play the roles of the Valentine cousins and their assorted friends and family? Who would be the voice of Elvis, the basset hound who thinks he’s the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll?

Morgan Freeman has a beautiful voice, but he’s a bit too serious-sounding for this sassy, sleuthing basset hound. I’d like to have Brad Pitt. Really, who wouldn’t? What I mean is, I’d like to have Brad do the voice of Elvis. What an attitude and a huge presence he could bring to the screen! Just right for the King of Everything!

Kate Hudson has the right comedic timing to play Callie. Give her a cute brown bob and some designer stilettos and she’d be the perfect constantly flustered hair stylist who can’t keep her hands off her almost-ex.

Add a few pounds to Katherine Heigl, give her flaming red hair, and she’s Lovie. Katherine has the sassy attitude and the smart mouth for the cousin who has had more lovers than Elvis has fleas. But she’s also capable of showing Lovie’s vulnerability.

Put Goldie Hawn on the screen as Ruby Nell Valentine (Mama). Pair her with Diane Keaton as Fayrene, and you have a pair of comedic actresses who could steal the show as Callie’s flamboyant, always-in-trouble mother and her crazy sidekick who drives around in a hearse with Gas, Grits and Guts painted on the side and says things like, “I’m so tired I’ve got to go home and sit on my new sexual sofa,” or “Help, somebody call the Highway Control. That basket hound’s dug up a body.”

Whenever movie is mentioned in connection with any of my books, I always say, “I want George Clooney,” no matter what the role. But truth to tell, he would make a perfect Uncle Charlie, a sexy older man with a dangerous past. Wow! Is that not a perfect Clooney role?

Who could be Jack Jones, Callie’s drop-dead-gorgeous almost-ex with the mysterious past? If I could clone Clooney, I’d want a younger version of him for Jack. If I could get Bobby with his psychic eye and Fayrene with her séance room on the back of Gas, Grits and Guts to bring Clark Gable back, just as he looked in Gone With the Wind, I’d want him for the role.

Which actor makes you swoon? If you could pick one of the current heart-throbs from your favorite TV show or movie, who would you choose for the incredibly sexy, slightly dangerous, can’t-keep-my-hands-off-him Jack Jones? Do tell!

Visit Peggy Webb's website and Facebook page.

--Marshal Zeringue