Alasdair Beckett-King has had the television rights to his children's book character Montgomery Bonbon optioned.

A gentlemen detective who bears an uncanny resemblance to a 10-year-old girl, Bonnie, in a fake moustache and long raincoat, Bonbon is being developed for a live action adaption for Trustbridge Global Media by producer Bob Higgins, whose credits include CBBC's recent Danger Mouse reboot and The Ricky Gervais Show animated series for Channel 4.

"Obviously, everyone wants their stories to be adapted for the screen because that's fun" Beckett-King told British Comedy Guide. "But I always thought [Montgomery Bonbon] would work well with live action."

The pitch for the prospective series is based on the comic's debut novel, Murder At The Museum, published earlier this year by Walker Books, which was followed by the sequel Death At The Lighthouse in October. Beckett-King is currently working on the third and fourth Bonbon novels.

Likening Bonnie's world to that inhabited by the Paddington films or Amelie, "magic realism where it's the real world but exaggerated slightly", the comic explains that the 10-year-old becomes a "detective from an unspecified foreign country because her accent is all over the place". Assisted by her Grampa Banks, she is "surrounded by adults that she runs rings around".

Although "full of jokes and very silly", Beckett-King maintains he's "worked hard on the mechanics of the mystery" and notes that while publishers are "cautious" about children's books about a murder, television commissioners are "even more nervous".

He stresses that he's written responsibly about the crimes, there's nothing "extremely cartoonish" or involving guns or knives. And he points out that children have "quite gruesome and morbid imaginations, at least the kids who enjoy my books do" and "you always want little hints of nastiness, something scary or evil".

He believes the stories will gain from being brought to television. "The idea of a mystery on screen is extremely pleasing" he observes. "Because it's so much easier to plant clues than on the page, you can show people things and not comment on it. Whereas in a book you have to sort of point at it and then try to come up with some way of making them temporarily forget, which is difficult".

Although Poirot and Sherlock Holmes are obvious touchstones for the Bonbon novels and his third book will be a country house mystery, Beckett-King reveals that their primary inspiration is the "impossible crimes" of David Renwick's BBC One series Jonathan Creek.

Starring Alan Davies as the titular character, who solved seemingly supernatural crimes while moonlighting as a creative consultant to a stage magician, "Jonathan Creek for kids is how I pitched it to my publisher originally" Beckett-King recalls.

Higgins became president of Trustbridge Global Media last year, as the new production company acquired the rights to the intellectual property of several children's publishers, including Walker Books. "Bob has got a really strong track record with children's programming so it's extremely exciting" Beckett-King says.

Having just completed his debut stand-up tour, he is going out on the road with his 2022 show, Nevermore, next year, running through spring and beginning at the Old Rep Theatre in Birmingham on 27th March.