Cannes Market Dailies

Route One Entertainment has secured the option for all media rights to the George Sueño and Ernie Bascom book series from acclaimed best-selling Mexican-American author Martin Limon for development as a TV series, announced Route One CEO Russell Levine who will serve as an Executive Producer on the series.

The series contains 11 investigative crime novels and a collection of award winning short stories that take place in and around the US Army base in Seoul, South Korea in the 1970s. The series follows Sueño and Bascom, sergeants in the US 8^th Army Criminal Investigation Division, as they investigate crimes in and around the Army deployment in South Korea. The first novel in the series, Jade Lady Burning, was selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times. The 12^th novel, The Nine-Tailed Fox, will be released October 2017.

"This is one of the best detective series out there, and it's unique in its exploration of the exotic world created by the mix of American and Korean cultures,” said Levine. “Sueño and Bascom feel like real people, and their adventures and relationships create the type of emotional and character-driven drama  that audiences are hungry for today."

“I am proud to be partnering with Route One in what I hope will be an eye-opening endeavor,” said Limon. “With the possibility of a wall being built between Mexico and the United States, and an on-going crisis on the Korean Peninsula, this series, I believe, will shed new light on a world that many in the viewing public have not even imagined to exist.”

The project will be the first under the company’s first look production deal with Blackbees Television Company. Blackbees’ CEO Michael Garcia will Executive Produce along with Levine and Route One’s Director of Development and Production Sophia Dilley.

The series has been widely praised including The Door to Bitterness being named as a nominee by the International Association of Crime Writers for the Hammet Prize in 2005 and most recently, The Iron Sickle was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in fiction in 2015.

Author Martin Limon joined the army at 17 and served briefly as a reporter for the Pacific Stars & Stripes in Seoul, Korea. During his five tours in Korea, he studied the language, traveled the country from the DMZ to the Yellow Sea, and was personally embroiled in the clash of cultures on this trip-wire edge of the American empire. His first novel, Jade Lady Burning, was published by Soho Press in 1992.