Steve Hamilton's 'The Second Life of Nick Mason' Heads to Hollywood

Steve Hamilton hasn't published The Second Life of Nick Mason yet, and it's already headed to Hollywood: film rights to the crime novelist's new series sold in a competitive situation, with producers openly using the f-word — franchise.

The premise explains the hurry. Nick Mason walks out of a federal prison twenty years early, into a townhouse, a sports car and a phone he must always answer — because his freedom was purchased by Darius Cole, a crime lord running his empire from a cell, and every call is an order. It's a bargain-with-the-devil engine that can generate sequels indefinitely, which is precisely what studios currently shop for.

Hamilton, a two-time Edgar winner for the Alex McKnight series, wrote the book after leaving a 25-year day job at IBM — a second life of his own. The novel publishes next spring; a sequel is already drafted.

Update: the book arrived in 2016 to strong reviews and the option has passed through several hands since — the standard Hollywood second act. The series is cataloged here; Mason's phone, presumably, is still ringing.