From Page to Screen; The 10 Best TV Adaptations

In each of the Bookmarked interviews that I've undertaken, I've asked the various authors which movie or TV show - one adapted from a book - they've most enjoyed.

There have been a host of great answers; Fiona Cummins mentioned Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs, Lesley McEvoy chose Wuthering Heights, while Mark Stay stated that Peter Benchley's Jaws was also "Spielberg’s masterpiece".

All great picks, but of the twelve interviews I've done, only two people chose a TV show [Chris Baker picking Red Riding and DL Fisher choosing The Perfect Couple], with everyone else going for feature films. Is that because films are better at making a lasting impact? Because a TV show's running time stretches a book's premise too thin? Or possibly because it's not always obvious when a TV show is actually an adaptation of an existing book?

Whatever the answer, I thought I would take it upon myself to create my own list of the best TV shows adapted from books. Of course, as with all lists, this is entirely subjective. There are lots of shows I've not seen, some I am not even aware of, and a whole host which are hugely popular but which didn't float my particular boat [The Witcher and Game of Thrones, I'm looking at you].

So, you may agree with some of the below, or you may think I have lost the plot for not including a certain show... whichever it is, I'd be very happy to hear from you so you can tell me where I've go it wrong.

Drop me a line at maxelwoodwrites@gmail.com

10. Mind Hunter

Gone too soon, I would say, because this David Fincher adaptation of the 1995 true-crime book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, is a brilliant and tense retelling of the formation of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. It only ran for two seasons but gave us portrayals of real-life killers including Charles Manson, David Berkowitz [aka Son of Sam] and Ed Kempner, and was an intricate and compelling look at disturbing real-world crimes, the people that perpetrated them and those who were tasked with apprehending them.

9. The Boys

If you like your action particularly packed and your violence entirely unadulterated then you're probably a fan of this show. I read the comic books, by graphic novel legend Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson, when they first came out and to say it was mind-blowing is both figuratively true and literally a description of the contents. An extremely sideways look at what the world might look like if superheroes actually existed and if they were co-opted by capitalism, the show - which is still being aired on Amazon Prime - is comedic, gruesome, dark and unpredictable, and if you can get past Karl Urban's slightly dodgy cockney accent (and the regular helping of outlandish gore) then you're in for a treat.

8. Reacher

Now, unlike many, many people, I didn't mind the Tom Cruise take on Lee Child's titular hero. Yes, in casting terms, the six-foot-five-inches tall Jack Reacher is - literally - a lot for the Cruiser to live up to, even with those Cuban heels but, height aside, I thought the films were decent. However, when Amazon Prime decided to take Reacher to the small screen, they cast the six-foot-three-inch Alan Ritchson and, with Child's hero described as having "a six-pack like a cobbled city street, a chest like a suit of NFL armour, biceps like basketballs, and subcutaneous fat like a Kleenex tissue", Ritchson is a much better fit for the wandering hero. With three seasons down and one upcoming, the show has been a huge success with Child's tightly plotted stories left largely intact, the action quotient generally satisfying and Ritchson's portrayal of the man-mountain very good.

7. The Walking Dead

Another comic book TV adaptation or, possibly, THE comic book adaptation. For a while, The Walking Dead TV show was the most popular programme in the world. Adapted from Robert Kirkman's post-apocalyptic writing and Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard's striking black and white artwork, The Walking Dead was a phenomenon when it first aired in 2010. Following a group of people aiming to survive a zombie apocalypse the show was a violent, tense and compelling story of how the real danger wasn't the marauding brain eaters, but the pockets of human survivors each vying to stay alive. Admittedly, the show struggled to remain original as the seasons progressed, with story arcs generally repeating, but the main thrust of the show, the diverse characters and the fact that you could never be sure who would survive, kept it running all the way to 2022.

6. The Night Manager

This is the first in a run of British shows on this list, and this 2016 six-part adaptation of John le Carré's 1993 novel was a huge hit for the BBC and an equally big hit in my house. While Tom Hiddlestone is no stranger to the suave, handsome and enigmatic lead, Hugh Laurie playing a dangerous and ruthless arms dealer was a revelation, and Tom Hollander's diminutive but potentially explosive right-hand-man was just as riveting. The plot was twisty in all the right places and the pay-off was satisfying. Like le Carré, a class act. [As a sidebar, if you've not yet read Hollander's A Life in the Day article from The Times it is, unlike the usual, fatuous stories about gyms, meditation and self-healing espoused by celebrities, brilliantly straightforward.]

5. Strike

Robert Galbraith's [aka JK Rowling] series of crime novels might be in need of a more censorious editor but they are still well-written, entertaining and compelling stories featuring, variously, murder, deceit, religious cults, jealous rivalry and not a small amount of 'will-they-wont-they' back and forth. The BBC adaptations of the books are equally as compelling and well made, and the lead characters of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott are brilliantly played by Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger respectively. The first of the books, The Cuckoo's Calling, was published in 2013 with the show debuting in 2017. There've been six books of the seven adapted so far with the most recent novel, The Running Grave, set to be aired this year. The characters are well-rounded and the plots well-constructed, though the 'will-they-wont-they' strand of the plot - both in the book and the TV show - is an ongoing one, I've found it is becoming a bit laborious... though I've not yet read the most recent book, so maybe it's finally been tied up, one way or another.

4. Sherlock

A revelation when it first aired in 2010, this show brought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's titular detective out of Victorian London and into the twentieth century. I remember thinking, when first seeing an advert for the show, that I'd maybe watched all the Holmes I needed to, with Guy Ritchie's Robert Downey Junior-starring film only having been released the previous year. But as a Mark Gatiss fan and knowing how well Stephen Moffat had done with the revamped Dr Who [I'm not a Whovian, but am aware how much people liked the new version of the Time Lord] I wanted to give it a chance. And I'm thankful I did because it's brilliant; funny, clever, action-packed but also emotional, with brilliant twists and edge-of-the-seat cliffhangers... and that's without even mentioning Andrew Scott's amazing turn as Moriarty. If you've not watched it, you're missing out.

3. The Ruth Rendell Mysteries

It's possible that this is an emotional choice as much as a critical one, but I still think that this show deserves to be on this list. Sunday evening's were not complete in my parents' house [mainly via my mum] if some sort of crime fiction adaptation wasn't on the TV. Poirot was a hit, and could easily be on this list, Miss Marple I could take or leave, personally, but my mum's favourite - and mine, too - was watching Detective Chief Inspector Reg Wexford and his partner DI Mike Burden in The Ruth Rendell Mysteries. It's arguable that I might have been too young to watch the early episodes [it first aired in 1987, when I would have been eleven-years-old] so maybe I only caught them later on, but the events which took place in the fictional town of Kingsmarkham [surely one of the most dangerous places to live in the UK] had me hooked. There were twelve series, running up to 2000, and each was a darkly layered mystery with the right amount of twists, the correct helping of red-herrings and, usually, a satisfyingly unexpected conclusion. Classic British telly.

2. Bosch

Michael Connolly's series of books about Los Angeles detective Hieronymus 'Harry' Bosch are brilliant, and the Amazon Prime TV show follows that trend. A tough, tenacious and sometimes unorthodox detective who has his own difficult past but who is always on the side of righteousness if not the side of the law, Bosch is a brilliantly complex character, but one you're always rooting for. Eschewing the slippery politics of law enforcement and the temptations of an easy win, Bosch is a shining beacon of morality in LA's sea of sharks - both criminal and otherwise - and his dedication to justice sometimes comes with a cost. Titus Welliver plays Bosch perfectly, a gruff, no-nonsense enforcer of the law, both the city's and his own, and it was a shame when the show, which started in 2015, ended in 2021. But that wasn't actually the end of Bosch; two spin-offs - Bosch Legacy and Ballard - came next and there's also a soon to be released prequel, Bosch: Start of Watch.

1. Slow Horses

It couldn't really be anything else at number one, could it? While Mick Herron's books about a dysfunctional department of the British Secret Service took a while to become successful - and they are now very successful - the Apple TV show was an instant hit. It's an ensemble series of novels with a host of brilliantly drawn characters, and the TV show replicates that. But it's the slobby, unfiltered, uncaring but hilariously dismissive department head, Jackson Lamb, who steals the show. Gary Oldman's portrayal of Lamb has rightly earned him critical praise and a series of awards but the whole show is as beautifully constructed as the books they adapt, with humour co-existing in perfect harmony with danger because, like The Walking Dead, you're never quite sure who will make it to the next series. The only negative thing I can say is that Apple has been so fast in adapting the novels that they're now running out of titles, and no more Slow Horses TV show would be a travesty.