Atlanta Author Karin Slaughter Turns ‘Will Trent’ Into ABC
Series Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent Will Trent is the product of Atlanta author Karin Slaughter’s imagination brought to life in the 10 best-selling books.
Now, ABC and actor Ramon Rodriguez have turned her literary creation into a TV character, set to debut on January 3 under the name “Will Trent.” UPDATE: ABC’s ‘Will Trent’ has been renewed for a third season Trent, as Rodriguez portrays him, is fussy, well-dressed and smarter than anyone else in the room. He’s a product of the foster care system, a plot point that shapes him as a detective and is highlighted in the first two episodes.
“He’s dyslexic, so he’s forced to look at things differently, like recording his observations,” said Liz Heldens, showrunner and writer. “He wears nice suits that are like armor to hide his scars. He has a very interesting personality. It was interesting to explore the many choices Karin makes over time.”
The casting did not follow Slaughter’s character description of being tall and blond. Rodriguez is not. But that doesn’t matter, says Slaughter, who also serves as an executive producer.
WILL TRENT – As the GBI continues its investigation into a missing girl, Will becomes frustrated with the search for a suspect, and Faith’s frustration with her new partner reaches an all-time high. (ABC/Matt Miller) “Ramon is really charming on screen and he really understands the character,” Slaughter says. “Even though he’s not exactly what I described in the book, he’s everything I wanted the character to be on the show. Ramon understands what drives Will and what’s important to him.”
In fact, Will Trent evokes a more serious, intelligent, and observant Adrian Monk, Tony Shalhoub’s famous detective on the USA series that aired from 2002 to 2009. (Helden admits Monk is a “standard measure”). Rodriguez, after being cast, said he read all the “Will Trent” books and became obsessed with him: “I was really fascinated by what this guy went through, how he made his way to the GBI and built the department’s highest clearance rate. His spirit and resilience amazed me.”
The film begins with Trent first adopting a cute dog named Betty, who becomes his human, then investigating a murder. At the scene of the murder, he awkwardly interacts with Atlanta Police Department officers, who are angry with him because he just implicated several cops in a corruption scandal.
Trent “can be annoying at times,” Rodriguez says, “but he also has a pretty thick skin. Nothing fazes him. He can walk through a crime scene where all the cops hate him and still get the job done.”
His supportive boss, Amanda (Sonja Sohn), forces Trent to team up with cop Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson), whose mother was one of the cops fired over the scandal. Of course, the tension between Mitchell and Trent is evident from the start.
His closest confidante is Atlanta Police Department cop Angie, played by Erika Christensen (“Parenthood,” “Traffic”). They were in the same foster home, experiencing similar traumas with different foster parents. Over the years, they occasionally became intimate. When Trent asks her out in the second episode, she says, “We don’t date. We hide in the dark and wallow in shame.”
Angie started the show sober but had struggled with drug addiction in the past. Slaughter says she’s relationship-avoidant: “She’s more comfortable with someone holding her back. She always goes back to Will when things get bad.”
Heldens says the pair “are soul mates and also terrible for each other.”
“Will Trent” is truly an Atlanta show, and the epic traffic jam in the first episode feels painfully real. A future episode will explore the history of Lake Lanier and the fact that it was once the thriving black community of Oscarville, which was eventually covered by water when the Buford Dam was built in the 1950s.
Heldens is the reason the show happened. She says she discovered Slaughter in her Kindle feed and quickly became hooked. “Her books are so captivating,” she says. “I love them.” So she and Daniel Thomsen (with whom she worked on the 2019 Fox miniseries “The Passage” in Atlanta) optioned the books and turned them into a viable project for ABC.
Slaughter herself is already a major literary star. Over the past 20 years, she has written more than 20 books, selling more than 40 million copies. She joins a group of crime/thriller authors who have
