Daphne du Maurier as sleuth

October sees the publication of Joanna Challis's Murder on the Cliffs (US edition) the first in a projected series with Daphne du Maurier as the detective. From Joanna Challis's website:

MURDER ON THE CLIFFS
St Martins Press

A new mystery series set in Cornwall, starring Daphne Du Maurier - THE MANORHOUSE MURDERS…

Each mystery will feature Daphne embroiling herself in a world of intrigue post WW1. She is writing, she loves Cornwall, travel, old houses, historic themes. She’s interested in people, what motivates them as character studies, particularly when there is murder, mystery and mayhem.

All of these “fictional” stories provides inspiration for Daphne’s future works. During Daphne’s journey, she encounters her future husband (whom, for the purpose this series, I have her meet earlier) and the dashing and yes, cynically cheeky Major Browning will show up in each book.

From amazon.com, the synopsis for Murder on the Cliffs:

The storm led me to Padthaway.

I could never resist the allure of dark swirling clouds, windswept leaves sweeping down cobbled lanes or a view of the sea stirring up its defiant nature. The sea possessed a power all of its own and this part of Cornwall, an isolated stretch of rocky cliff tops and unexplored beaches both enchanted and terrified me.

It is not a lie to say I felt drawn out that day, led to a certain destiny...

So begins this new mystery series featuring young Daphne du Maurier, headstrong, adventurous, and standing at the cusp of greatness.

Walking on the cliffs in Cornwall, she stumbles upon the drowned body of a beautiful woman, dressed only in a nightgown, her hair strewn along the rocks, her eyes gazing up to the heavens. Daphne soon learns that the mysterious woman was engaged to marry Lord Hartley of Padthaway, an Elizabethan mansion full of intriguing secrets.

As the daughter of the famous Sir Gerald du Maurier, Daphne is welcomed into the Hartley home, but when the drowning turns out to be murder, Daphne determines to get to the bottom of the mysteries of Padthaway—in part to find fresh inspiration for her writing, and in part because she cannot resist the allure of grand houses and long buried secrets.

Daphne du Maurier has of course already dabbled in detection in 2008's Daphne by Justine Picardie which is now available in paperback.

Justine Picardie's Daphne to be filmed

Again from Book2Book:

Bloomsbury Publishing is delighted to announce a film deal for Justine Picardie's forthcoming novel, Daphne, to be published in March 2008.

The option has been bought by Robert Fox, producer of the films - Iris, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal and executive producer of Closer and most recently the Golden Globe winning, Oscar nominated Atonement. Daphne will be his next project.

Fox's family had ties with the Du Mauriers and as a child Robert himself visited Daphne at Menabilly, Fowey, the house that would go on to inspire so much of her writing. Justine Picardie is thrilled to have a producer so in tune with this book and its history.

Daphne is published on March 3rd 2008, priced £14.99.

Synopsis:

It is 1957. The author Daphne du Maurier, beautiful, famous, despairing as her marriage falls apart, finds herself haunted by Rebecca, the heroine of her most famous novel, written twenty years earlier. Resolving to write herself out of her misery, Daphne becomes passionately interested in Branwell, the reprobate brother of the Bronte sisters, and begins a correspondence with the enigmatic bibliophile Alex Symington as she researches a biography. But behind Symington's respectable scholarly surface is a slippery character with much to hide, and soon truth and fiction have become indistinguishable. In present-day London, a lonely young woman, newly married after a fleeting courtship with a man considerably older than her, struggles with her PhD thesis. Her husband, still seemingly in thrall to his brilliant, charismatic first wife, is frequently distant and mysterious, and she can't find a way to make this large, imposing house in Hampstead feel like her own. Retreating instead into the comfort of her library, she begins to become absorbed in a fifty-year-old literary mystery.

The last untold Bronte story, "Daphne" is a tale of obsession and possession; of stolen manuscripts and forged signatures; of love lost, and love found. It is a beautiful, original novel from the acclaimed author of "Wish I May".