Part2 tries to solve ‘Twin Peaks’ murder

US producer Part2 Pictures has optioned a forthcoming true-crime book that tracks the murder that inspired cult TV show Twin Peaks.

David Shadrack Smith

Blonde, Beautiful & Dead: The Murder Mystery That Inspired Twin Peaks is by David Bushman and Mark Givens and attempts to uncover the story behind the real-life murder of a young woman from Sand Lake, New York.

Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost’s grandmother lived in the area and the circumstances surrounding the girl’s death served as an inspiration for the show, which was recently rebooted for Showtime. Frost will also write the foreword to the book.

Part2 Pictures, which has been behind CNN’s This is Life with Lisa Ling, will adapt a TV docuseries based on the book in association with Metabook Films, the film and TV arm of the book’s publisher, Metabook.

David Shadrack Smith, president of Part2, said the story “has all the texture and twists of Twin Peaks but has the beauty of being true crime with a current day investigation unfolding alongside the events of the past.”

Smith added his company would “take a multi-platform approach to it with Metabook and create something that lives across diverse media.”

The TV adaptation will closely follow the narrative and investigative course of the book, which is based on Bushman and Givens’ years of research into the killing. The two co-authors will serve as consulting producers on the docuseries.

Executive producers will include Smith and Amy Bucher from Part2, and Benjamin Alfonsi from Metabook Films. Metabook CEO Christian Alfonsi and publisher Ken Siman will serve as co-executive producers.