David Housewright's "The Last Kind Word"

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David Housewright is the Edgar Award and three-time Minnesota Book Award-winning author of the Rushmore McKenzie and Holland Taylor novels as well as other tales of murder and mayhem in the Midwest.

Here he shares some suggestions for casting an adaptation of The Last Kind Word, the 10th of his Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie novels:

Truth is, I’ve never given much thought to which actors I would want to play the major parts if my books were to be made into movies. But my fans have. I asked the question on my social media outlets and was quite surprised by the responses I received.

For Nina Truhler, I was given names of actors including Jennifer Connelly (my favorite), Cobie Smulders, Stana Katic, Claire Forlani, Marg Helgenberger, Mary Steenburgen, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Barbara Stanwyck (if only). Yet few of my readers seemed to have a handle on McKenzie (throwing out the names Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise doesn’t count). Some readers said they imagine me in the part even though we’ve never met and all they know about my appearance is from the photo of the dust jacket.

If wonder if it’s because while I have described Nina in some detail, I’ve never described McKenzie - not his hair, the color of his eyes, or even how tall he is.

Readers create a picture in their mind of what characters in their favorite books look like (sometimes ignoring of the actual descriptions) and will not be happy when the actor doesn’t measure up to the image. Remember the uproar when the comparatively diminutive Cruise player Lee Child’s Jack Reacher? Come to think of it, my wife has never forgiven Cruise for playing the vampire Lestat in Interview with the Vampire. As far as she’s concerned, that part belonged to Daniel Day Lewis.

Learn more about the book and author at David Housewright's website and Facebook page.

--Marshal Zeringue