In March 2008, BBC DAYTIME and Fever Media launched a brand new series “Murder Most Famous” which challenges six celebrities to learn the rules of how to write a block buster crime novel, culminating in one celebrity being given the chance to write their own crime fiction novel.

The six star pupils will experience life on the frontline of murder detection, train with the police, pathologists, firearms experts and will meet real criminals and victims.

The first author to take part is Minette Walters, who will be challenging the celebrities to follow a series of rules and punishing tasks and use what they’ve learnt to complete daily writing challenges.

Training challenges will include dog tracking, resisting a violent attack, an autopsy, crime scene investigation, interrogation techniques and rapid pursuit of a suspect.

She will set the challenges, mentor their writing and then “bump off” the least impressive wannabe author at the end of every episode. The winning celebrity will then work up their plot and principle characters into a novel to be published by PanMacmillan.

The series is in conjunction with RaW (Reading and Writing) – the BBC Learning-backed campaign to improve levels of literacy in the UK.