Beauman’s madcap thriller optioned for TV by 'Operation Mincemeat' team

The Bookseller I May 3 2022

Television rights to Ned Beauman’s upcoming thriller Venomous Lumpsucker, scheduled for UK publication by Sceptre on 14th July, have been acquired by Kris Thykier’s Archery Pictures, the production company behind John Madden’s “Operation Mincemeat” and Sky thriller “Riviera”. 

The deal was brokered by Lucinda Prain at Casarotto Ramsay & Associates on behalf of Jane Finigan at Lutyens & Rubinstein.  

Sceptre described Venomous Lumpsucker as a speculative literary thriller for the age of Extinction Rebellion, a “dark comedy” and a “madcap adventure story set in a dystopian world ravaged by climate change".

With tens of thousands of species dying out every year humanity’s last hope is the biobanks, impregnable vaults where their remnants can be preserved forever. Until one day an audacious cyberattack obliterates every single one. 

In the aftermath, a troubled conservationist and a crooked mining exec must team up in search of the venomous lumpsucker, a lost fish that they both desperately need to save. The further they go, the deeper they’re drawn into the mystery of the attack on the biobanks. Who was behind it? And why would anyone do such a thing? 

Thykier commented: “Venomous Lumpsucker is a hilarious and thrilling ride and the more the story unravels the stranger things become. It’s about environmental collapse, corporate greed, and humanity’s complex relationship with nature. It’s a bold, offbeat and somewhat absurd story, and it couldn’t be more timely. Ned Beauman is a genius, and we couldn’t be more excited to be developing his masterpiece.” 

Beauman, also author of Boxer, Beetle (Sceptre), winner of the Writers’ Guild Award for Best Fiction Book and the Goldberg Prize for Outstanding Debut Fiction, added: “When I finished this novel, I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’m proud of this, it’s just a shame that I have no hope of selling the TV rights, because it’s much too weird and also, it’s called Venomous Lumpsucker’. Thank you to Archery for proving me wrong! And I’m especially happy to have them take it on because I’ve been working with them on something else, so I already know they’re really good.”