The Cop Book Series That Got away

“In the mainstream publishing system, licensed books are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the licensors that own the intellectual properties, and the editors who work with authors to maintain the license’s integrity. These are their stories.”

The contract lay in the street, pages scattered, staples twisted at unnatural angles, ink smeared by the light rainfall. Detective Lennie Briscoe turned up his raincoat collar and looked around at the book editors pressed up against the police barricades, cell-phone cameras clicking away to record the tragedy. Briscoe shook his head. You’d think these publishing mooks had never seen a contract killing before.

His partner, Detective Ed Green, sidled over, jotting down some information in his notebook. “According to the editors over there, the deceased was a contract for a Law & Order book series, but the deal fell through.”

Briscoe looked up to the broken sixth-floor window from which the contract had made its exit, then down to the messy pile of paperwork. “That’s not the only thing that fell through.”

“Hey, Lennie, you ever wonder why there’s never been any novel series based on the Law & Order franchise?” Green asked. “I mean, there are all those series that authors could explore in book form: the original Law & Order; Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; Law & Order: Criminal Intent; and Law & Order: LA and Law & Order: Trial by Jury, even though both of those never made it past a single season.”

“Yeah,” Briscoe agreed. “Not to mention there was Exiled: A Law & Order Movie, about my old partner Mike Logan—”

“The one who got transferred to Major Crimes for a few years?”

“Right. And of course the Brits have Law & Order: UK.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Green said. “Seems like the perfect license for publishing crime novels, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, that’s what you’d think.” Briscoe jerked a thumb in the direction of the shattered window. “Apparently not everyone shares your opinion.”

He looked down at the broken contract, its ink flowing into the gutter. “What’s that old expression—‘publish or perish’? Looks like somebody’s not gonna be making the bestseller list…”

*            *            *

Welcome to the latest installment of Tales of Development Hell, a series of posts in which I tell you about projects I was hired to work on that never made it all the way to completion. Since today is the 25th anniversary of Law & Order’s 1990 series debut on NBC, I figured the timing for this particular tale couldn’t be better. (Not that any other time of the year would be inappropriate for this telling—you can’t miss the L&O, Criminal Intent, and SVU reruns that remain in heavy rotation on cable TV.)

So: Law & Order novels. A great idea, yes? Well, that was exactly the thinking of ibooks, inc. publisher Byron Preiss in mid-2001, when he and I sat down with L&O creator Dick Wolf to discuss a publishing program. At the time, L&O was working on its twelfth season, SVU was in production on its third, and a new series, Criminal Intent, was set to air in the fall. There were other plans for the franchise in development, and we wanted to be a part of them. Byron hit Wolf with the full publishing range we were interested in tackling: original novels by mystery authors, nonfiction books (for example, The Science of Law & Order, similar to the Science of the X-Men and Forensic Files of Batman real-science titles we’d published), even graphic novels. Wolf grinned at the notion of L&O comics. Being a fan of the original series, and a well-respected editor (he said humbly—but it’s true), I would be overseeing the publishing program, but declined Byron’s offer to write one of the novels; mysteries and thrillers aren’t my writing strong suit.

One of the upcoming projects that Wolf was particularly enthused about was Terror: A Law & Order Miniseries, a five-hour storyline that would have crossed over all three series and involved a terrorist attack on New York City. Byron suggested a novelization, to be published in time for the event’s broadcast premiere. It would have meant hitting the ground running almost immediately, and coordinating with Wolf’s production company on the fly, but Wolf liked the idea…as long as we maintained the same level of secrecy he’d established for the project—he wasn’t ready to announce it to the world just yet. (As fate would have it, Wolf made the formal announcement on September 10, 2001…and we all remember what happened the next day. As you’d expect, Terror was instantly scrapped.)

Negotiations continued a few weeks after 9/11—since the L&O casts and crews were so tight with the NYPD, they were mourning the loss of police officers they’d known who died when the Towers collapsed—and eventually a deal was reached. The next step was to select authors, and have them create pitches for novels—one L&O, and one SVU, to start. The selection process didn’t take long, and soon enough we had authors lined up, and pitches that were both accepted by Wolf Films in a surprisingly short time. Now the real writing could begin.

[Note: For you continuity buffs out there, the character lineups for the books were:

LAW & ORDER — Season 12 — Pictured: (l-r) Jesse L. Martin as Detective Ed Green, Jerry Orbach as Detective Lennie Briscoe, Elisabeth R÷hm as A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn, Sam Waterston as Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy (Photo by Craig Blankenhorn/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Law & Order: partners Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), 27th Precinct lieutenant Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson), and prosecutors Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) and Serena Southerlyn (Elizabeth Röhm)

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: partners Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), SVU captain Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), and Stephanie March as prosecutor tk—along with the rest of the SVU team

If we’d expanded into a Criminal Intent series—as we planned on doing—the books would involve the season one lineup of partners Det. Robert Goren (Vincent D’Onofrio) and Det. Alexandra Eames (Kathryn Erbe), Major Crimes Squad captain James Deakins (Jamey Sheridan), and prosecutor Ron Carver (Courtney B. Vance).]

Holy Moses—actual Law & Order novels were being created! The first time a publishing house had managed to swing such a deal! It was a cause for celebration.

But then, this being a Tale of Development Hell, you know something had to go wrong—don’t you?

To be concluded!