Mark Harmon on new crime scene, "John Sandford's Certain Prey"

Mark Harmon hasn't done much work outside "NCIS" since the hit CBS series began, but he tackles a new role in the mystery movie "John Sandford's Certain Prey" at 9 p.m. Sunday on the USA Network, also the home of frequent "NCIS" repeats.

An executive producer of the film as well, Harmon plays Lucas Davenport, protagonist of more than 20 novels by Sandford (a pseudonym of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and journalist John Roswell Camp).

Minneapolis' deputy police chief, Davenport is wealthy through his computer expertise, but he likes his daily job. In "Certain Prey," he races FBI agents to determine whether a hit woman murdered an attorney's wife.

"I was a fan of the books," Harmon says. "I'd been reading this type of material for a while, by a number of different authors. Michael Jaffe another of the movie's executive producers  owned this, and we talked. It's been a process from which book to do, to selling it, to finding the writer and director, to getting it done. I'd never done that before from start to finish."

Now in Season 9 of playing naval investigative team leader Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Harmon sees commonalities in Davenport.

"I seem to be lured by the edges more than what's out front, with any character," he says.

Incidentally, USA will lead directly into "Certain Prey" with a marathon of "NCIS" episodes.