Kurt Ellis’s taut South African thriller IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES has just been optioned for screen adaptation by The Ergo Company.

Producer Dumi Gumbi says this about the novel: ‘I just love how Kurt Ellis writes – his words leap off the page – as a producer I have been looking for a piece of material that can make a great cop/crime thriller high-end series and Kurt writes so evocatively and cinematically – one can see the story play out in one’s mind.’

IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES tells the story of Nick Creed, expert criminal profiler, who hunts down human monsters for a living. Back in South Africa after working with the FBI, he is haunted by his past mistakes, including the death of his fiancée. When a young woman is murdered and dismembered in her Johannesburg apartment, Creed’s long-time friend and head of the SAPS’ Investigative Psycho
logical Unit, Major Eli Grey, enlists his help in investigating the murder – an attempt to save the self-destructing Creed from himself. But not all the Unit’s members welcome his involvement, and there are those intent on exposing his secrets while the murder is being solved. The young woman’s community are convinced she was the victim of a witch called Nomtakhati, but Creed’s hunch points to an angry ex-boyfriend. Who, or what, is really behind the murder? Could it be Nomtakhati, who believes Nick Creed is uSatane?

IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES is a dark psychological thriller about metaphorical demons from the past and the living monsters who target the innocent by the author of the thrillers BY ANY MEANS and CHAIN OF CAUSE. Ellis is a past winner of the Harry Oppenheimer Creative Writing Award, and holds a creative writing master’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. He lives in Johannesburg with his wife, daughter and son.

Also published in Ukraine, IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES was first published in South Africa by Penguin Random House, who will be publishing Ellis’s newest novel, CHAIN OF CAUSE, in 2024.