Beware Those Closest: The Screenplay

A frequent theme that threads its way among my various books and stories is the following: “Beware those closest to you; they can do the most damage.”

You’ll find this admonition served up by major character in my Antarctic Murders Trilogy as well as by Homicide Detective Louis Martelli, NYPD, in the murder mystery series in which he is featured. Thus, I have used it as the title for this movie script, which is based on my novel House of Cards: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

About the book:

Who Killed Matthew B. Richardson III? Banksters or Islamic Terrorists?

Gary Sorkin for Pacific Book Review said: "Cohen's style is not unlike that found in novels by authors such as Dan Brown, or Tom Clancy, or even the late Michael Crichton." Here, the head of one of the largest investment banking and securities firms in the United States has been assassinated on Times Square in the middle of New York City's annual celebration of Halloween, the Festival of the Dead. Louis Martelli, NYPD, is one of the first detectives on the scene. The case rapidly spirals downward into a maelstrom of death and intrigue linked both to the financial meltdown of 2008 and international terrorism. Who was behind the murders, and why did the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) attempt to shut down Martelli's investigation before it even got started? Martelli eventually learns the answers to these and other questions, but not before discovering how two Wall Street financial institutions have been complicit in funding Islamic terrorism.

As was the case for the screenplay Death by Wall Street, which also is available in paperback format, once I completed a good first draft of the screenplay for Beware Those Closest, I again hired Howard Allen, the so-called Script Doctor, to “scrub” the document.

https://scriptdoctor.com/the-scriptdo...

Howard has worked for years as a professional actor, playwright, director, screenwriter and literary manager/dramaturg as well as a reporter, reviewer and editor in his journalistic career. I loved working with him, and I found our interactions most pleasant . . . and instructive. To say my screenplay benefited from his sharp red pencil is an understatement. He did not disappoint. (Ouch!)

And again, being a glutton for punishment, I submitted the edited and revised text to an American Zoetrope Screenplay Competition judged by Francis Ford Coppola. Alas, there was no joy in Mudville.

Still, the exercise acted to improve my dialogue writing skills. And I hope it will bring you both pleasure and insight as you explore for yourself how to create a screenplay from one of your novels or help a friend create a movie script for one of his books.