News and Gossip - mcomet.com

LOS ANGELES - HBO has retained the services of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.

The cable network has ordered 13 hour-long episodes based on the best-selling crime books by Alexander McCall Smith, with shooting to begin in the summer. That's in addition to the two-hour pilot that Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) recently shot in Botswana from a script he wrote with Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral).

Agency stars R&B singer Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe, the proprietor of the only female-owned detective agency in the southern African nation. Anika Noni Rose plays her quirky secretary, Mma Makutsi, and Lucian Msamati stars as Ramotswe's devoted suitor, JLB Matekoni.

HBO has secured U.S. and Canadian television and home video rights, and the BBC has taken U.K. television distribution. The Weinstein Co. controls all other international territories. http://www.hollywood.com/news/HBO_on_the_Case_with_Ladies_Detective_Agency/5099299