Ron Howard is attached to direct and produce an adaptation of Joel Dicker's hit novel The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair for Warner Bros.

The book, which has become a publishing sensation in Europe, follows a novelist who gets caught up in a scandal involving his beloved mentor, a heavyweight of American literature, when a 15-year-old girl is found dead in his backyard. The book was published by Bernard de Fallois' Editions de Fallois, and has already sold more than 2 million copies. The book finished just behind Fifty Shades of Grey on the charts in France, and it has also outsold Dan Brown's Inferno in Italy and Spain. Penguin will publish the novel in the U.S. next month.

The filmmaker is also producing with his Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer, with deals already in the works for Eugénie Grandval (The Next Three Days) and Claire Lundberg to produce as well. Imagine's Erica Huggins and Alexandre Dauman are serving as executive producers, with Jesse Ehrman and Racheline Benveniste overseeing the project for Warner Bros.

Ron Howard is currently in post-production on Heart of the Sea, which stars Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy and Ben Whishaw. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are also working on an adaptation of Dan Brown's Inferno, with Tom Hanks set to reprise his role as Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons.