Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn set to explore steampunk New Orleans in upcoming detective show

ABC is currently developing a new adventure show set in a steampunk New Orleans that will star Mark Twain’s classic characters, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The adventure drama begins as Sawyer and Finn meet again in their 20s, and team up to form an investigative firm. Jason Richman and David Zabel, creators of Detroit 1-8-7, will write and produce Finn & Sawyer together.

Detective shows (especially those modernized from classical literature) are very much in vogue at the moment, as evidenced from the popularity of BBC’s Sherlock and CBS’s upcoming Elementary. ABC’s adaptation doesn’t appear to stray far from its source material — in Tom Sawyer Abroad, the duo travels to Africa in a hot air balloon, and in Tom Sawyer, Detective, Sawyer takes on a murder mystery. However, Twain wrote both novels with the intention of parodying the adventure and detective genres, and it will be interesting to see if the show’s creators intend to fall in line with the characters’ satirical roots.