The BBC will adapt the crime novels written by JK Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, its second collaboration with the Harry Potter author.

The Cuckoo’s Calling, the first book to feature private eye Cormoran Strike, became a huge bestseller after Rowling was unmasked as its author when her cover was blown by a legal firm that had worked for her.

The book and its follow-up, The Silkworm, published earlier this year, will form the basis of the BBC1 drama series.

The BBC said Rowling will “collaborate on the project” with the number and length of the episodes still to be decided. Danny Cohen, the BBC’s director of television, said: “It’s a wonderful coup for BBC television to be bringing JK Rowling’s latest books to the screen. With the rich character of Cormoran Strike at their heart, these dramas will be event television across the world.”

The series will be produced by independent producer Bronte Film and TV, which is working on the BBC/HBO adaptation of Rowling’s novel The Casual Vacancy, which will be screened in February next year.

Speaking earlier this year, Rowling said she wanted to make the books into a series that would run for longer than her hugely successful seven Harry Potter books. She said: “It’s pretty open-ended. I really love writing, so I don’t know that I’ve got an end point in mind.

“One of the things I love about this genre is unlike Harry Potter, where there was a through line, where there was an overarching story, a beginning and end, you are talking about discrete stories. So while a detective lives, you can keep giving him cases.”

The BBC1 adaptation of The Casual Vacancy, Rowling’s first novel since the Potter books, will star Michael Gambon, Keeley Hawes, Rory Kinnear and Julia McKenzie. It is a co-production between the BBC and US cable channel HBO.

Neil Blair, chairman of Bronte Film and TV, said: “We’re delighted to be bringing these bestselling novels to the screen and to be working once again alongside the BBC.”