This week Crime Cymru’s Beverley Jones explains how “Wilderness” is making its way from holiday, to page, to screen

‘Not long now,’ I keep telling myself. With an autumn 2023 air date penned in, my novel Wilderness is almost ready to hit TV screens at last, and it’s been quite a ride.

The Wilderness journey began, more years ago than I care to admit, on the red rock rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, with a photo I snapped of my husband above the mighty Colorado River, just a green snake on the valley floor. Or perhaps it was before that, at any moment really, on our dream road trip through North America’s National Parks. As a crime writer, even when I’m on holiday, especially when I’m on holiday actually, is when I like to think about killing people.  While everyone else is snapping selfies and admiring the picturesque panoramas, I’m probably thinking, that looks dangerous, you could have a nasty accident there, and, that looks like great spot to bump someone off when their back’s turned!

So, a story was born about how dangerous it is, out on the cliffs and canyons, where a slip, a trip, even losing your way can be deadly. Especially if there’s no phone signal, no one to call for help and the person you’re traveling with might want to teach you a fatal lesson.

Fast-forward several years and, with Wilderness finally in print, I found myself trying not to get over excited as I sipped a glass of alarmingly expensive red wine. I was fresh off the 10.05 train from Cardiff to Paddington, in a Fitzrovia bar, meeting the heads of Firebird Pictures who, six months before, had bought the TV rights to the novel. I won’t lie and pretend I was being cool and coy at the news that, not only had someone read and enjoyed my dark thriller about a dream road trip across America that turns deadly, they wanted to make it into a six-part series.

I came home that day with the first of many draft scripts in my hand, penned by the marvellous Marnie Dickens, the words ‘based on the book by BE Jones’ typed on the cover, and we were off! Then we weren’t, because COVID 19 hit, everything shut down as we all navigated our way through the real-life plot of an unexpected dystopian novel. Still, having that script in my hand was pure wish fulfilment for a big kid who’d been a movie and TV addict since she was old enough to hold a remote control. Because, honestly, there wasn’t a lot to do in a mining village, in post-industrial South Wales in the 1980s, except escape through that magical screen to far flung places and read lots of books.

The idea of writing my own novel that might, one day, make it to the screen, had been a long-held fantasy. But, after squeezing in writing my first four thrillers around the 24/7 slog of working as a newspaper and TV journalist, then a police press officer, Wilderness had been something of a last-ditch attempt to make this whole writing lark my day job.

I thought the pandemic might put paid to that dream before it had got any speed up but, a year later came the news that that Amazon Prime were on board, and later still, we had the all-important Green Light, the money was in place and production could finally begin! Last summer filming too place across the US and Vancouver and it was really happening.

Every writer has an idea of who they’d like to see playing their protagonist and honestly, Jenna Coleman was not at the top of my list. Liv is quite a physical, dark character and I wasn’t sure the gorgeous and petite Coleman could embody her rage and betrayal. Then in Spring 2022, I was privileged enough to sit in on a Zoom ‘table-read’, where the actors, in their various houses and hotel rooms around the world, appeared in their digi-boxes to read through episode one, and I was blown away by her amazing performance.

Just before Christmas 2022, I was back in London at the Firebird editing suite to see a bit of the post- production and some key scenes from the early episodes, still in a raw state. I can tell you, when I saw Liv and Will (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) in their convertible, cruising into view against the panorama of the desert it was all I could do to keep my composure. (I’m not crying, you’re crying. I just have something in my eye…)

If I’m impatient to see the finished product I had no idea how excited the legions of dedicated Jenna Coleman fans would be. One of the most enjoyable things over the last year has been watching the memes on Twitter and Instagram, chatting to the devotees about the paparazzi snaps of the New York shoot as they get more and more excited for a release date. Hopefully we’ll please all the fans but even if we can’t, one thing’s for sure, I know it’s been, and is going to be, a hell of a ride! 

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Wilderness – Book Blurb

Two weeks, 1500 miles and three opportunities for her husband to save his own life. It wasn’t about his survival – it was about hers. 

Shattered by the discovery of her husband’s affair, Liv knows they need to leave the chaos of New York to try to save their marriage. Maybe the road trip that they’d always planned, exploring America’s national parks, just the two of them, would help heal the wounds. But what Liv hasn’t told her husband is that she has set him three challenges. Three opportunities to prove he’s really sorry and worthy of her forgiveness. And if he fails? Well, it’s dangerous out there. There are so many ways to die in the wilderness. And if it’s easy to die, then it’s easy to kill too. If their marriage can’t survive, maybe he can’t either. 

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Beverley Jones is a former newspaper reporter and BBC journalist who worked on all aspects of crime reporting producing stories for newspapers and live TV. She also worked as a press officer for South Wales Police, dealing with the media and participating in criminal investigations, security operations and emergency planning.

Now a freelance writer and novelist, she channels her experiences of ‘true crime,’ and the murkier side of human nature, into her dark, psychological thrillers set in and around South Wales. 

Wilderness is her sixth novel, followed by Halfway and Where She Went published by Little Brown.