All at The Agency were delighted to see the news that our client Simon Ashdown will be adapting Louise Candlish’s best-selling thriller THE ONLY SUSPECT for ITV, with GREY’S ANATOMY star Kevin McKidd in the lead role. The series is produced by Red Planet Pictures (a Freemantle Company) for ITV.
Set in a leafy London suburb, The Only Suspect follows Alex and Beth, a devoted couple whose picture-perfect suburban life hides a devastating truth.
Moving between the present day and mid-90s Camden – at the height of Cool Britannia – the story opens during the sweltering summer of 1995, when a young man buries a body during a violent storm. Who the victim is, and why they were killed, is a mystery that tantalisingly threads through the narrative as past and present collide.
Thirty years later, another heatwave grips a very different world. The abandoned railway track where the body was hidden – running behind Alex and Beth’s street – is being transformed into a nature trail, spearheaded by Beth herself. What is a triumph for the neighbourhood instead threatens catastrophe for Alex.
Because Alex is the young man who buried the body.
Having spent decades living under an assumed name, Alex now faces the unravelling of everything he has built. As diggers prepare to break ground on the very spot where his secret lies, his carefully constructed life spirals – and he must decide how far he is willing to go to keep the truth buried.
A gripping, twisting thriller, The Only Suspect explores obsession, deception, betrayal, the consequences of the recklessness of youth and secrets that refuse to stay hidden.
Simon Ashdown is represented by Bethan Evans at The Agency (London) Ltd.
