CASH AND 'CAREY'
Col options mysteries for JD Prods.
According to sources, the series --- viewed as a possible franchise property --- was the subject of bidding between Columbia and Warner Bros. before Pascal made the winning bid.
The novels are known as the "Neal Carey" books, after the main character, a one-time street urchin who is mentored by a Fagin-like detective into becoming a top-flight private investigator.
The first book of the series, "A Cool Breeze on the Underground" ---published in 1991 by St. Martin's Press and subsequently nominated for an Edgar Award --- is the first book targeted for production.
Moonlighting P.I.
In the tome, Carey is a grad student at an Ivy League school moonlighting as a young P.I., who is hired to find a runaway teen caught up in the London punk world.
The other books in the series are: "The Trail to Buddha's Mirror," "Way Down on the High Lonely," "The Long Walk Up the Waterslide" and "While Drowning in the Desert."
Winslow, a practicing P.I. in Dana Point, Calif., had his most recent novel, "The Death and Life of Bobby Z," optioned by Warner Bros. and Richard Donner and Lauren Shuler-Donner last year.
Hamsher and Murphy produced "Natural Born Killers" and are finishing production on the Brian Singer-helmed "Apt Pupil" for Phoenix Pictures.
Sally Wilcox of CAA brokered the deal on behalf of Winslow's Gotham-based lit agent, Jimmy Vines.
