What It Is Like to Let Go When Your Book Becomes a TV Show

Topic: Crime Fiction

Chris Hammer used to be a journalist. He became a bestselling writer and published his first crime novel in 2018, when he was almost 58 years old.

Chris Hammer watched the new outback crime series Treasure & Dirt on ABC iview.

He did not know how the six‑part series would end, just like other viewers.

The show follows detectives Ivan Lucic (Michael Dorman) and Nell Buchanan (Liv Hewson) as they try to solve a murder in a remote opal mining town where locals want the truth hidden.

He knows the story because he wrote the original book that the TV series is based on.

Detective Ivan Lucic (left) expects an easy case, but his partner Nell Buchanan (right) knows that nothing is simple in the opal mining region.

This is the second time a Hammer series has been turned into TV. Treasure & Dirt follows the 2023 drama Scrublands, which is now in post‑production for a third season.

Hammer still finds it hard to believe.

"It feels unreal to see ideas you imagined become real," he says.

Book‑to‑screen adaptations are common in Australian TV.

When a headless body is found in an opal mine, Ivan and Nell are sent to the remote town of Nulla where law is optional.

In the last year, Sally Hepworth’s The Family Next Door, Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career and Jane Harper’s The Survivors were also made into TV series. A new series called Dustfall, based on Vikki Petraitis’s The Unbelieved, will arrive soon.

Changing a book into a TV show does not always improve an author’s life.

Writer Tomi Adeyemi recently called adapting her YA novel Children of Blood and Bone into film "the worst thing I have ever had to live through" because of a hostile environment.

We asked Hammer to explain what the process is like for authors.

Letting go of control

There were no guarantees that Treasure & Dirt would reach TV after it was optioned in November 2023. It only meant a production company paid for the rights to adapt it if they wanted to.

Many writers get their books optioned, but only a few actually become shows, Hammer says.

The process can be long. You never know if it will happen until filming starts.

Fortunately, Treasure & Dirt was lucky. Filming began in Coober Pedy, South Australia, in October 2025.

Production officially started last year.

Hammer knew he would not be heavily involved at first; that was his wish, even though screenwriters did not have to follow his book exactly.

I do not want to write scripts. That is for people who are more skilled. I am happy to keep writing books and improve at that," he says.

Hammer visited the set once and described it as "absolutely fascinating". That was the only time he was on set.

Later he saw an early preview of the first two finished episodes.

"I was eager to watch the rest, so I streamed them on ABC iview as soon as I could," he says.

Every character in the TV series hides something.

The method used for Scrublands was similar; Hammer had little input on the first two seasons. For the third season he spent one week in the writers’ room helping with big‑picture ideas.

"I hope I added something," he jokes. "It was also fascinating just to watch."

Accepting big and small changes

Hammer always expected the TV version to differ from his book.

It is impossible to stay completely faithful to a book because a book can describe thoughts, while TV can only show feelings through actors," he explains.

Readers will notice the series is based on the book, but some storylines were cut, others altered, and new ones added.

I watched closely to see what happened, which sounds odd but is true," he says.

Screenwriters Matt Cameron and Kate Mulvany completely "re‑imagined" his story.

Some changes are small, like gender swaps or younger characters.

Other changes are big, such as deaths that were not in the book. The biggest change?

"The ending is very different," Hammer says.

I thought I would be protective, but I am not.

I encourage viewers to read the book because it offers a very different experience.

A Trojan horse TV series

One major difference is not the plot but how the dried‑up opal town is shown.

The bright yellow Coober Pedy, renamed Nulla in the show, feels like an uncredited third lead actor.

Nulla feels both cramped and endless, reflecting the show’s themes of being trapped versus being free.

"The TV show makes the story feel stranger," Hammer says. "They created something new and fresh."

That promise of freshness attracted actors Michael Dorman (The Secret Life of Us) and Liv Hewson (Yellowjackets) to the project.

"On the page it reads like a procedural," Dorman says.

"On screen it feels turned upside down, focusing more on human connection than the crime mystery," he adds.

The new thriller is set in the underground caves of Coober Pedy, plus four other new shows to watch.

Hewson says they would call the show a "Trojan horse" while making it.

"It uses familiar ideas to draw viewers into a completely new place," they explain.

"The show takes big risks in tone, pace, character and execution," they add.

Finding Ivan and Nell in the quiet heat and dust

Both actors wanted to shape their own versions of Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic.

Dorman drove nine hours from Adelaide to Coober Pedy to become Ivan.

Sometimes he stopped, got out of the car and stood on the roof to feel the empty, hot landscape and its real danger.

Dorman has not read any of Hammer’s books yet, but was convinced by director Madeleine Gottlieb’s creative vision for the adaptation.

"In the vast quiet heat and dust, little habits started to form," Dorman remembers.

"You cannot fully recreate that feeling unless you have lived it. I had no idea what it would be like for the characters before traveling to Coober Pedy," he admits.

Hewson says they made sure Nell was not just Ivan’s sidekick or a plot device.

"Nell is lonely, cautious, underestimated and very smart. She is repressed and does not expect to be understood. I wanted to bring her out," Liv Hewson says.

"I wanted her and Ivan to mirror each other in many ways," they explain.

"Their partnership is the story’s core. She needed to be a complete person and an equal partner," they add.

There were moments when Hewson and Dorman swapped each other’s lines and improvised. Hewson felt she had full creative permission.

Both leads feel their lives changed forever after working together in Coober Pedy on a project that turned the outback noir genre upside down.

It would have been impossible for Dorman and Hewson to match Hammer’s exact vision, but he thinks they gave outstanding performances.

Hammer says it still feels surreal that people want to turn his stories into TV.

"I really wanted another group to take my book and re‑imagine it, to create something different," he says.

If the book is changed and the result is bad, he would be upset.

Stream all episodes of Treasure & Dirt free on ABC iview or watch the finale on ABC TV at 8:00 pm Sunday.

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