Poirot's stolen my book title


I opened the Sunday Times Culture this morning and scanned the television programmes for the week, looking for anything remotely interesting that I might be bothered to watch. Then I saw it. Someone had televised my thriller IN FOR THE KILL to be aired on Sunday 28 September at 9pm on ITV. Did I blink and miss signing the contract with the production company? Was I so drunk celebrating the option that I completely blacked out on this deal? Or had someone stolen the rights to my thriller?

I studied the details more closely. My God, they'd put Poirot in the lead role instead of Alex Albury! How could they? They're complete opposites. Poirot is fat, fussy, middle-aged and Belgian. Alex is late thirties, good-looking, athletic and English. Poirot is investigating a crime set in the 1930s. Alex a modern-day one. Poirot needs to solve an apparent suicide and the riddle of an incriminating letter - Alex why someone stole his identity and planted incriminating evidence on his hard drive resulting in his arrest and conviction for fraud and embezzlement. Poirot needs to track down a killer. Alex seeks revenge for being framed.

It doesn't sound like my novel, but I'd better watch the programme just in case Scarlett appears, or her mother, Ruby. Then there's Alex's defence lawyer, Miles. If only I could get all the suspects from the production company in one room, then by some clever questioning, much raising of eyebrows, a few red herrings and no doubt the reading of the body language I might just be able to get to the truth. I know one of you took my book title, but which one? And how can you pay for this gross miscarriage of justice? Why, by screening the real IN FOR THE KILL, of course.

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