Philip Marlowe novels are being developed for TV

'Castle' creator Andrew Marlowe is working with ABC to create a TV adaptation based on the character by Raymond Chandler.

TV may be getting a new detective.

ABC is working with the showrunner and creator of the drama “Castle,” Andrew Marlowe, to develop a TV program based on Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe stories. The character of Marlowe first appeared by name in Chandler’s 1939 novel “The Big Sleep” and was played perhaps most famously by Humphrey Bogart for the 1946 film adaptation of “Sleep.” Actors Elliott Gould and Robert Mitchum also portrayed the detective.

Marlowe was the center of television adaptations briefly on ABC between 1959 and 1960 in the program “Philip Marlowe” and in the British series “Philip Marlowe, Private Eye,” which aired in the UK and the US between 1983 and 1986, among other versions.

According to ABC, the new show will be “a smart, sexy and stylish update of Chandler’s character which follows the investigations of wisecracking, edgy, and rugged private detective Philip Marlowe as he navigates the morally complicated world of today’s Los Angeles – where the bright California sun casts long and dangerous shadows … and where true love can be more difficult to find than justice.”

As noted by Deadline, ABC tried to create a TV show based around Marlowe in 2006, but the show only filmed a pilot that never aired.