Television production company Free@Last has scooped TV rights for Tom Benjamin’s Daniel Leicester private detective series.

Barry Ryan, managing and creative director, acquired the rights from Bill Goodall at the Bill Goodall Literary Agency.

Published by Constable and set in Bologna, the currently four-book series follows widowed English private detective Daniel Leicester working for his Italian father-in-law’s detective agency. Italian Rules, the most recent book in the series, was published in paperback May 2023.

Benjamin said: “I’m tremendously excited to be working with Free@Last. My novels seek to bring Bologna to life, and this beautiful, largely undiscovered city as seen through the eyes of my British detective and his Italian family seems made for TV.”

Ryan added: “I was immediately entranced by Daniel Leicester and Tom Benjamin’s evocative Bologna. Free@Last is overjoyed to add these wonderful novels to its slate and looks forward to bringing them to life on the screen.”