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Lynda La Plante 'steps back' from ITV's Prime Suspect production
Author Lynda La Plante is no longer working with ITV on its prequel to "Prime Suspect" after allegedly being unhappy about the way it was being adapted.
An ITV statement said the author had "decided to step back" from writing the drama series “Prime Suspect 1973”. However, it added: “ITV will continue to produce and broadcast the six part series, which will come to air in 2017. We are grateful to Lynda for allowing us to adapt her brilliant book.”
La Plante told the Waitrose Weekend Magazine when asked if it was an amicable parting: “A sad one, more than anything else really.”
Asked if she was happy with the choice of casting Stefanie Martini, who has previously starred in ITV's "Doctor Thorne", as the young DC Jane Tennison, she said: “I don’t know, I haven’t seen it.”
Previously La Plante had told newspapers: “I don’t want a known actress, that would be very dangerous. We’re looking at new girls. She can’t be exquisite, she has to have weight to her, a stillness, a strength. The hunt is on; I want to find her."
The six-part series, based on La Plante's latest book Tennison (Simon & Schuster), will be broadcast in 2017.
The book follows DC Jane Tennison, aged 22, as she starts her first police job in Hackney after police training and becomes involved in her first murder case.
When the book prequel was announced in 2014, La Plante said: "When you first meet her (Tennison) in the early 90s, she is a very complex character, but what made her so? Nobody knows what drove her to become a DCI or want to join the police force in the first place."
Dame Helen Mirren played the police chief Tennison for seven series on ITV from 1991 to 2006.
A spokesperson for the author told MailOnline La Plante was now busy writing the third novel in the Tennison series.
Lynda La Plante has sold 2.65m books for £14.92m in the UK, according to Nielsen BookScan figures.
