Paul Dark's Bright Future

Author Jeremy Duns had a big update on his blog last week about what the future holds for his Paul Dark spy series, including a title change in Britain, a US publication date (at long last!) for the second book and a BBC adaptation. If you're not familiar with this series and you're reading this blog, well, you really should be! Duns is a true scholar of spy fiction and a true fan as well, and his passion for the genre comes through in spades in his well-written, Sixties-set novels. The first book, Free Agent, is definitely one of my favorite new spy novels of the past few years, and the sequel, Free Country, is a terrific follow-up. One of the things that makes these books so much fun is that Duns has managed the neat trick of bridging both sides of the spy genre: the "desk spy" and the "field spy" in a unique way. While Greg Rucka very successfully follows The Honourable Schoolboy model, simultaneously tracking the connected storylines of the planner at the desk and the agent in the field, Duns opts to go the Smiley's People route, in which the desk man becomes a field man. But while Le Carré's novel puts his quintessential desk man George Smiley back in the field after far too many years as a sort of fish out of water, Duns' hero, Paul Dark, is a man of action closer to James Bond than Smiley who feels more out of his element in the corridors of Whitehall than running through the streets of Rome. Yet Duns himself seems at home writing about either side of the spy world, and contrives a far-fetched yet serviceable scenario to get his high-level intelligence official into car chases and foot chases.

The second book, Free Country, however, is undergoing a title change for its UK paperback edition, due out in August. It will now be known as Song of Treason. Duns reports that the change came about because his publisher "felt there was a danger that Free Country might not signal to those who hadn’t read the first book in the series, Free Agent, that it was a spy thriller." Hm. Personally, I certainly prefer the original title (and like the idea of all three novels in the trilogy beginning with "Free"), but what do I know about publishing? I hope the new title signals its genre well and that the book attracts all the readers is deserves.

As nearly a year has gone by since the book's initial UK hardcover publication, I was starting to despair for the prospects of a US edition of Free Country, but happily Duns reports that it will be out in America, from Penguin, sometime next year, and, unlike the British paperback, it will retain its original title! The third book in the trilogy will also retain its long-time working title of Free World whenever it's finally published in the US, but in Britain and Canada, where it will be out in February 2010, it will (somewhat confusingly) be known by the Ludlumesque moniker of The Moscow Option. It can currently be pre-ordered from Amazon.co.uk for half price, but be warned if you haven't yet read the second book that the synopsis for the third contains spoilers.

But that's not all the Paul Dark news there is! Here's the real cause for celebration, per the author: "Although the trilogy ends there [with Free World/The Moscow Option], Paul Dark does not, as I’ve just signed a new contract with Simon & Schuster and am hard at work on a fourth Dark novel, set in 1971. This continues his story from the first three books, I hope in an unexpected and exciting way." I'm already excited by this unexpected revelation!

Finally, Duns touches on last year's news that the series had been optioned for television by the  BBC. Apparently, development continues apace, with Timothy Prager penning the adaptation. Prager's previous spy experience includes the 1990s TV series The Ambassador (which focused in part on the MI6 operative assigned to Britain's embassy in Ireland) and the 2003 Michael Caine/Michael Keaton thriller Quicksand.

In addition to his novels, Duns' blog, The Debrief, is essential reading for spy fans.

Paul Haggis to Pen Gabriel Allon Spy Movie?

Way back in 2007 we heard that Universal had acquired Daniel Silva's series of spy novels about former Mossad agent (and Munich avenger) Gabriel Allon and tapped Pierre Morel, then known only for directing District B13 and shooting the first two Transporter movies, to helm. Obviously Morel went on to make a spy name for himself with Taken and From Paris With Love, but his take on Allon seems to have fallen apart. Then in April of this year Deadline reported new movement on the property at Universal, with former NBC topper Jeff Zucker on board to produce. Now The LA Times' 24 Frames blog (via MI6) reports that two-time James Bond screenwriter Paul Haggis (Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) is in talks to write the first movie in the potential franchise, probably drawing from Silva's first Allon book, The Kill Artist. According to the newspaper's Steven Zeitchik, "it's possible Haggis would also direct it, but one of the sources said that the project is in early development and that any decision on a director would be much further off." As a director, Haggis is best known for the Oscar-winning Crash. Silva's most recent Allon book is The Rembrandt Affair; another, Portrait of a Spy, is due next month. (The titles reflect Allon's cover as an art restorer.) It's possible that Haggis will draw from multiple books in crafting the inaugural Allon film.

New Eurospy Poster Book

Remember that awesome exhibition of Eurospy posters in Hatfield, England last year? (It also happened again last month in London, an event I was sadly remiss in reporting on. I hope some London readers were able to make it anyway.) Well, if you weren't local, and like me you longed to attend but couldn't, now you're in luck: you can now peruse the entire collection in your own home! The exhibition catalog from the Kiss Kiss Kill Kill event is now available to order directly from the Kiss Kiss Kill Kill Archive. According to the site (which is quite excellent, by the way, and definitely bears a visit if you still haven't checked it out), "the book is a large format A4 all colour art book on 100g paper stock with over 100 stunning newly restored posters. All artwork from the exhibition is featured as well as an introductory essay by the curator Richard Rhys Davies." Richard runs the website as well as the collection itself, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the world with a broader knowledge of Cold War-era European spy movies. I have no doubt that his essay, however brief it might be, will be every bit as worthwhile as the beautiful art itself.

As for that art, I've often said that Eurospy posters are even better than the movies themselves. The filmmakers may have been bound by tight budgets and sometimes less than stellar performers and effects, but not the poster artists! On paper, every one of these 007 knock-offs is the Bond movie it desperately wants to be! Exciting action, beautiful women, stylish fashions, fast cars, big explosions, phallic weaponry... it's all there in vivid color, equal to any of the masterpieces Robert McGinnis or Frank McCarthy created to advertise James Bond.  Of course, I should note that not all of the movies represented in this book are the Bond knock-off variety that we typically picture when we think "Eurospy."  While many of them do aspire to Bondage, Richard has also tracked down posters for obscure masterpieces in their own right from both sides of the Iron Curtain, and the catalog will no doubt introduce even the most seasoned Eurospy afficionado to titles he or she has never heard of.  Personally, I can't wait to get my hands on a copy!

The Kiss Kiss Kill Kill Exhibition Catalog is available directly from the KKKK website for £24.99 (€29.99 / $39.99) with free postage via Paypal payment. It's also available at www.pinkcatshop.com, where you can pay with your credit card.

Tradecraft: Anton Corbijn to Direct Le Carré's A Most Wanted Man

A Hamburg-set Le Carré thriller from the director of The American?  Yes, please!  According to The Hollywood Reporter, Anton Corbijn will helm a film adapted by Andrew Bovell (who penned the 2010 movie version of Edge of Darkness for Martin Campbell) from John Le Carré's 2008 novel A Most Wanted Man. The book follows a Chechen Muslim named Issa who illegally immigrates to Hamburg and may be a terrorist. He's at the center of an elaborate plot involving the intelligence agencies of multiple countries who should be allies but can't play nice together and an everyman banker named Tommy Brue who's caught in the middle. I haven't read that one and I'm usually wary of movies revolving around extraordinary rendition (I know, I know; it's an important issue to discuss, but frankly I tend to find it boring), but if anyone can make that subject compelling it's Le Carré. (This trailer for the book certainly makes it appear so!) But they had me at spies in Hamburg anyway; I don't need to know more.  I really enjoyed Corbijn's meditative assassin movie The American (read my review here), though I'll freely admit that while it was beautiful to behold, it lacked a truly compelling plot.  That's something that Le Carré excells at, so this should be a good match.  A Most Wanted Man will lens this winter, primarily in Hamburg.  If nothing else, The American certainly proved that Corbijn shoots European cities and towns like nobody else!

New Bond Author Jeffery Deaver On Spy Tradecraft

What better way to celebrate today's release of Jeffery Deaver's new James Bond continuation novel Carte Blanche than heading on over to The Wall Street Journal to read the author's primer on espionage tradecraft, "Lessons Learned From Bond—James Bond?"  It's a really good overview of the basics of spying that shows that Deaver has done his research and clearly enjoyed his foray into the world of secret agents.  Deaver offers tips worthy of Michael Westen (or William Johnson) on what to do if you think you're being tailed, how to forge a signature, and how to choose good dead drops, among other things.

New Spy Novels Out This Week: James Bond and Tom Clancy

This is a huge week in America for high-profile spy novels.  Two of the biggest names in the genre go head-to-head at bookstores today giving spy fans plenty of pages to keep them engrossed on the beach this summer: James Bond and Tom Clancy.  And both of them have help.  Bond is aided by the highest-profile and bestselling author to pen a 007 continuation novel since Kingsley Amis, American thriller writer Jeffery Deaver.  With no offense intended to John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Charlie Higson and Samantha Weinberg (each of whom penned some terrific entries in the series), this is probably the first time since Colonel Sun that a James Bond continuation novel has boasted a "marquee value" author capable of selling a ton of books without the Bond name, and therefore capable of drawing legions of new readers to the brand. Clancy, meanwhile, is aided by co-author Peter Telep, whose previous novels span all genres.  Since returning from his seven-year hiatus following The Teeth of the Tiger, Clancy has opted to work with collaborators.  (Grant Blackwood co-wrote last year's Jack Ryan novel Dead or Alive.)

It was a little over a year ago that we first heard the exciting news that Ian Fleming Publications had tapped Deaver to pen the first contemporary James Bond continuation novel in nearly a decade.  (Higson, Weinberg and Sebastian Faulks had written period pieces set roughly in the timeline of Fleming's original novels; Benson was the last author to tell a Bond story set in the present day.) Then, this book was known only as Project X. In the interim, it's gained a real title, Carte Blanche, and been released in Britain, last month, to very favorable reviews.  The plot finds a Bond firmly rooted in the 21st Century driving a Bentley, traveling to Serbia, Dubai and South Africa, and taking on a villain who built his empire on refuse! I only just received my UK edition (a lousy Second, grumble, grumble) from Amazon, so I'm only about 100 pages in, but I must say, so far I'm loving it.  Interestingly, I picture Daniel Craig when I read Deaver's Bond.  In other books, I've always pictured a literary 007 quite separate from any actor.  I'll post a full review when I finish, but I don't want to rush; I want to savor the new James Bond novel!  Order Carte Blanche from Amazon here.

Deaver's book may well clock in as the longest Bond novel ever at 432 pages (in the US edition), but it's got nothing on Clancy's and Telep's tome, a typical 768-page behemoth!  This one caught me by surprise when we first heard about it a few months ago, because Clancy just had a novel out late last year which isn't even in paperback yet! I haven't yet picked up Against All Enemies, but it's my understanding that this novel does not feature Clancy's perennial hero Jack Ryan.  Instead, it introduces a new hero, CIA agent (and ex-Navy SEAL) Maxwell Moore. Moore's mission takes him from Pakistan to another desert in America's own backyard: Mexico.  According to the book's copy, "Here a drug war rages between the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels. The landscape is strewn with bodies, innocents and drug dealers alike, but is there an even deadlier enemy lurking in background? Into this deadly brew, Moore leads a group of specially selected agents whose daring actions reveal shocking answers and uncover an unholy plan—a strike against the very heart of America."  It sounds like a vintage Clancy plot, and I'm excited by it.  Despite a couple of less than stellar later books, I'm hopeful that this one will represent a return to form for the man who ruled the spy genre in the 1980s. And while the next Jack Ryan movie remains in limbo (as reported recently), now Clancy fans can at least get their fix in print!  Order Against All Enemies from Amazon here.

Tradecraft: Cruise Reaches For Reacher

I have to admit, I haven't read any of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels.  My impression is that they're not really spy thrillers, but do tread fairly closely to the genre.  And I know Child considers Ian Fleming, Len Deighton and John Le Carré to be influences on his work.  I've read one spy story that he penned for Otto Penzler's excellent anthology of "international thrillers," Agents of Treachery, and thought it was excellent.  It left me really wishing that Child would pen a straight-up spy novel, but also intrigued to check out his Jack Reacher books.  As I say, I don't know much about Reacher, but one thing I do know is that he's tall--very tall.  Which is why it's a little surprising that Deadline reports that notoriously short spy star Tom Cruise is in final negotiations to play the part!  According to the trade blog, "Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions are negotiating with Tom Cruise to star this fall in One Shot, a thriller based on the Lee Child book series about former military policeman-turned drifter Jack Reacher. Christopher McQuarrie will direct his script." Apparently Child himself is fine with the casting.  (You probably would be too if one of the biggest movie stars in the world wanted to attach himself to your property.  Ian Fleming, no doubt gleeful at the prospect of his famous character being filmed, once wrote that he'd be fine with Jimmy Stewart playing 007 if it meant Alfred Hitchcock would direct!)  "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way," Child reasoned.  Hm.  I can't really comment, but perhaps some avid readers of this series will chime in with their views on this casting.  Have your say below.

Smiley Re-Jacketed

In George Smiley's first appearance in Call For the Dead, John le Carré described his most famous creation in a rather unflattering manner: "Short, fat, and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad."  Yet now, thanks to artist Matt Taylor, Smiley is undergoing an uncharacteristically stylish upgrade.  In a move that surprised the book industry, le Carré defected from long-term publisher Hodder and Soughton to Penguin in 2009. Part of the new publisher's appeal to the author was said to be the chance to occupy the same roster as his literary idols, Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad, both of whose catalogs are very handsomely maintained by Penguin. Ironically, another spy author whose company the move puts him in is Ian Fleming. "I dislike Bond. I'm not sure that Bond is a spy. I think that it's a great mistake if one's talking about espionage literature to include Bond in this category at all," le Carré told an interviewer in 1966... though he later conceded that his reactive statement may have been a tad harsh. Penguin have been the stewards of Fleming's Bond books for the last decade now, and expertly shepherded them through a succession of classy reissues on both sides of the pond. No matter how le Carré feels about Fleming, one can't help speculate that 007's treatment in the hands of Penguin may also have played a part in his decision to make the publisher his new home.

Now, in anticipation of the new film version of le Carré's seminal work, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (see today's earlier post), Penguin have unveiled a series of Smiley reissues just as striking as their Bond covers. On June 7 they'll release the first two books in the "Karla Trilogy" (Tinker, Tailor, which earns a "Soon to be a major motion picture" banner, and The Honourable Schoolboy) with colorful new covers by Taylor, who also provided artwork for the recent paperback edition of le Carré's latest novel, Our Kind of Traitor. The third volume, Smiley's People, follows on June 28. After that, the reissues continue with non-Smiley works The Little Drummer Girl (the same day as Smiley's People), A Perfect Spy and The Naive and Sentimental Lover (both in late July).

These three novels are not the only ones featuring George Smiley, but they are the best and the most substantial—and they form the core not only of le Carré's body of work, but of the Espionage Canon as a whole. This trilogy is absolutely essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in the spy genre. (I'm praying that the new Tinker, Tailor movie will prove successful enough to merit film versions of all three novels; I'd love to see The Honourable Schoolboy filmed!) All three books will also be issued as eBooks the same day. Unfortunately, there's no way of telling from Penguin's website if the author's introductions from the Scribner editions (penned in the 1990s) will be included in the new reissues. I suppose it's possible that those might belong to the old publisher like special features on a Criterion DVD that fail to appear on a subsequent studio version. I do hope they're included, because I've found all of them to be insightful supplements to the novels. For constant coverage on all things Smiley, I recommend the relatively new website SmileyWatch (linked on the right of this blog), who first reported on Tinker, Tailor's new cover back in April.

New Images Revealed From Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Remake

The Playlist points the way to the Danish website Movie Pilot, which debuts three new images from Tomas Alfredson's upcoming big screen adaptation of the best spy novel ever, John Le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Among them is our first look at recent Oscar-winner Colin Firth as the quintessential MI6 operative Bill Haydon, and he looks suitably dapper. There's also our first official look at Tom Hardy as scalp hunter Ricky Tarr (following the unofficial set pictures from last winter) and a new photo of Gary Oldman as spymaster George Smiley. Additionally, the film's official Facebook page has gone live, giving us an expanded look at that first official image of Oldman that we first glimpsed last fall.  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was previously filmed (quite masterfully) as a BBC miniseries starring the incomparable Alec Guinness.  Penguin is reissuing the novel (along with the other two books comprising the so-called "Karla Trilogy") this June with a striking new cover just in time for the film, which is set to kick off the Venice Film Festival before a UK bow in September and an Oscar-timed American release later in the fall. I'm looking forward to a lot of movies coming out later this year (including Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Johnny English Reborn and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), but this one is far and away the one I'm most excited about!

Book Review: The Last Run: A Queen and Country Novel by Greg Rucka

With his third novel in a franchise that also comprises an ongoing series of comic books and several mini-series (all conveniently collected into four omnibus-sized volumes), Greg Rucka happily maintains the high standards that Queen and Country fans have become accustomed to and then some. I would have been happy just to have these characters back after too long an absence from both bookstores and comic book stores, and might have settled for something less—but fortunately I didn’t have to. The Last Run is a fantastic spy novel, and probably the second-best in the saga so far, closely following A Gentleman’s Game. (And the second book, Private Wars, was no slouch either.) A familiarity with the previous novels or comics is not necessary to enjoy this book, as Rucka concisely reintroduces all of the major characters quite effectively—which is handy even for a longtime fan, since it’s been so long since we’ve enjoyed the company of Tara Chace, Paul Crocker and the rest of Rucka’s SIS crew. (However, if you have read the rest of the series, you’ll be rewarded with some rich payoffs to character arcs and political machinations that have been percolating for its duration.)

Tara Chace is Minder One, the head of the SIS’s Special Section. (Rucka’s minders are roughly the equivalent of Le Carré’s scalp hunters, Fleming’s Double O’s or—most directly—The Sandbaggers’ sandbaggers.) But her operational shelf life is fast nearing expiration. Aging roughly in real time since the beginning of the series, she’s been at it for over a decade, which is far longer than most agents are kept in the field in Rucka’s world. (And very probably in real life, I’d imagine.) Furthermore, she’s a mother now, and she doesn’t like leaving her daughter Tamsin for long periods of time—with no certainty of ever returning. Particularly poignantly, she’s forced to leave Tamsin in the arms of a babysitter while the child has the flu and is running a high fever as Tara embarks on her final mission. And it’s never in any doubt that this is, indeed, her final mission—one way or another. That doesn’t give anything away; Rucka makes that clear from the earliest chapters if not the title itself. Tara Chace submits her resignation to Paul Crocker, the Director of Operations (D-Ops), but considerately agrees to stay on until a suitable replacement can be found. She soon comes to regret that consideration, however, when the head of the service, C, insists (at the unappreciated behest of the CIA) that Minder One take on a potentially suicidal mission into Iran that seems suspiciously like a trap.

In all of his novels, Rucka divides his chapters between Tara’s point of view, Crocker’s, that of a supposed ally and that of a supposed enemy. (Forgive my vagueness, but to reveal who is actually what in books like these would be, in the words of The Prisoner’s Number 2, telling. Perhaps the characters are exactly as they appear, and perhaps they are not. Readers of Rucka’s past Q&C novels know it can go either way.) In The Last Run, the new characters are SIS’s newly-posted Tehran Station Number Two, Caleb Lewis, and Youness Shirazi, the head of Iran’s secret police, VEVAK, who spends much of the story pursuing our heroine. In every Rucka novel I begin by sighing when I come to a chapter focusing on one of these non-regulars and thumb ahead to see how many pages I’ll have to go until I get back to my favorite characters, and then very quickly I come to welcome the new characters just as much. In the comics, Rucka is limited by the space constrictions of the medium and can’t afford to spend so much time developing his antagonists. Those stories work wonderfully sticking to the POVs of Tara and Crocker, but the addition of other points of view differentiate the novels enough to make them a unique reading experience in the series—and to justify using two different mediums to tell his stories.

The too-good-to-be-true bait that Crocker reluctantly sends Tara after is a high-level would-be defector: no less a personage than the nephew of the Ayatollah himself. The Iran setting provides not only a backdrop torn directly from the headlines (as they say), but also the best opportunity to tell a Cold War-style spy story in the vein of Smiley and Samson in a modern context. In his (quite brilliant) short story “Section 7 (a) (Operational),” Lee Child pokes fun at the ubiquity of Iran-related plots in contemporary spy novels. But in The Last Run, Greg Rucka ably demonstrates all the advantages of setting a spy story in that country. It’s the closest scenario in today’s world to the European chessboard Len Deighton and John Le Carré once moved their pieces around. When the mission predictably goes to hell, Tara finds herself alone in a hostile country being pursued by VEVAK, the military and the regular police. Yet it’s a country she was able to travel freely into under non-diplomatic cover—and even blend in. How many other countries in the news today could a blond, female, Western spy believably do that in? Rucka handily puts a contemporary spin on all of my favorite Cold War tropes: the ambiguity of a defector (is he for real or not?), the embassy as refuge, imperiled networks and dead drops, the agent on her own behind enemy lines, the run for the border and ingenious crossings thereof. The Last Run has all that in spades.

As usual, poor Tara is put through the ringer. More than ever before, though, there is absolutely no certainty that she will come through it all. We know from the start that it’s her last run, but that can mean several things… and Rucka has shown time and again that he’s not above killing off main characters in this series. Meanwhile, as usual, Paul Crocker has his own battles to fight at home, and his navigation of the Whitehall bureaucracy is often as perilous in its own way as Tara’s flight from authorities in an unfriendly land. Paul Crocker is Rucka’s greatest creation, and I could easily read a whole novel (or comic) just about him… but it’s probably more fun to jump between the field and the office, as we do in Queen and Country.

If The Last Run has a flaw, it’s that the ending—whatever happens—is all too abrupt. While all the primary plot threads are resolved, I’d like to have known more about how some of them were wrapped up. But thanks to the point of view we see them through, that’s not possible. I closed the book with questions—not the sort that fuel my already eager anticipation for the next book or comic, but the sort that pertain specifically to the one I just finished and are unlikely to be addressed in the future. But that’s a minor complaint. The Last Run is a clearly well-researched and utterly thrilling read sure to satisfy fans of both the Desk and Field sides of the spy genre. I honestly can’t recommend this whole series highly enough.

Len Deighton Interview @ The Deighton Dossier

Fello COBRAS blog The Deighton Dossier (the best resource out there for information on Len Deighton's spy novels) has scored a really cool interview with the man himself!  Parts One, Two and Three are all up now at the Dossier, comprising the entire Q&A.  In the first part, the author discusses his writing habits, what he's working on now, and the Harry Palmer movies (including the never-filmed Horse Under Water). Check it out!

Plame's Spy Novel Coming From Penguin in 2012

We heard last year that notoriously outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was working on a spy novel with mystery writer Sarah Lovett.  Today Deadline reveals that the publisher will be new Penguin imprint Blue Rider Press, and that the book will be out in 2012.  Plame previously penned a non-fiction memoir. She was also the subject of a Decemberists song, of Bourne Identity director Doug Liman's excellent 2010 spy movie Fair Game (review here), and served as a techinical advisor on the first season Liman's CIA-set TV series Covert Affairs (review here).  Covert Affairs: Season One is out today on DVD from Universal.

More Bond Memoirs From Roger Moore

The Book Bond points the way to a very exciting news item on 007 Magazine Online revealing that Sir Roger Moore is writing a follow-up to his fantastic 2008 autobiography My Word Is My Bond. Whereas that one covered his whole life to date (and comes highly recommended!), the new volume will focus specifically on his tenure as James Bond. Since the actor's years in Bondage only amounted to three chapters in his autobiography, it seems reasonable to expect that he's got plenty more anecdotes worth reading on the subject. The new book, Bond on Bond, will be published in September 2012 by Michael O'Mara (publisher of My Word Is My Bond) to celebrate the cinematic 007's 50th anniversary.  In addition to Sir Roger's recollections, Bond on Bond (and I personally love that a Roger Moore book about James Bond references Bob Dylan) will also feature lots of color photographs (many presumably never before seen) from the actor's personal collection. Said the inimitable Sir Roger: "I'm greatly looking forward to delving into my memory box again and rummaging through the photo albums to admire my great physique, dashing good looks and full set of teeth." Go read all about it on 007 Magazine Online.

Between this and George Lazenby's autobiography, 2012 is shaping up to be a very promising year for books on and by Bond actors! In other Roger Moore book news, the actor recently revealed on his website that there is also a new book in the works on his classic TV series The Persuaders! to celebrate that show's 40th anniversary later this year.

Last Day To Hear "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" Radioplay Online

Following their very cool adaptations of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels Doctor No and Goldfinger, BBC Radio 4 has aired yet another Fleming-based radioplay.  This one's adapted (by Sherry Ashwell) from his classic children's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Imogen Stubbs and Alex Jennings star. You can listen to it online with the BBC's iPlayer, but it's only available through this weekend, so listen quickly! In other Chitty news, The Book Bond recently reported that author Frank Cottrell Boyce will pen new adventures for Fleming's magical car... though she'll be transformed into a rather dubious minibus.

Lucifer Box Returns On the Radio

Mark Gatiss' dandy secret agent Lucifer Box is back!  Not in a new novel, unfortunately, but in a new BBC Radio recording of the author's second (and best) Box novel, The Devil in Amber.  (Read my review of the book here.) It's actually not really an adaptation, unfortunately, but Gatiss himself reading his own novel.  Still, with a performer as talented as Mark Gatiss (who played a litany of characters on The League of Gentlemen), that's the next best thing.  It's also notable because although an abridged, Gatiss-read audio version of his first Lucifer Box book, The Vesuvius Club, was issued on CD, no audio version of The Devil in Amber ever came out. So now's your chance to hear it, in six half-hour segments. The first one can be heard here on the BBC's iPlayer right now... but only for a few more hours, I'm afraid. The second episode begins tomorrow and will be available for a week.

John Le Carré Gives His Blessing To Official Biography

John Le Carré has given his blessing to the first ever authorized biography of the acclaimed spy author and former spy.  The Daily Telegraph reports that biographer Adam Sisman will be given full access to le Carré’s personal archive for a book expected to be published in 2014 to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. It's notable that the notoriously reclusive Le Carré, whose real name is David Cornwell, is not only allowing such a book, but cooperating, because two decades ago he waged a fierce legal campaign to prevent such a work from being published.  Journalist Graham Lord promised what the newspaper calls "salacious details about a famous author’s personal life" and "a thrilling romp through his mistresses, wives, loves and losses – and his work for the secret service." Le Carré successfully blocked the book's publication, but now he'll apparently allow such matters to be discussed. Novelist Robert Harris (who penned The Ghost, which was turned into the Pierce Brosnan movie The Ghost Writer) was previously tapped to pen Le Carré's official chronicle under the condition that he not publish until after the author's death, but confessed to The Telegraph that "I got distracted by writing my own novels, so I am happy for Adam to write [Le Carré's biography]. I might do a more impressionistic portrait, but I have a legal agreement with David that anything I know is not to be divulged before his death."

Against All Enemies: Another New Tom Clancy Novel On the Way

This is kind of surprising.  After a seven-year hiatus following The Teeth of the Tiger, Tom Clancy is delivering two mammoth new spy thrillers within six months of one another.  2010's Dead or Alive, which debuted in hardcover in time for Christmas, doesn't even come out in paperback until September... but that's not stopping Clancy from unleashing another new hardcover novel, Against All Enemies, this summer.  Due out June 14, the 768-page novel is co-written with Peter Telep.  Dead or Alive was also written with a collaborator (Grant Blackwood); perhaps that's the secret to Clancy suddenly becoming so prolific.  In the past, he had collaborated on (or in many cases merely lent his name to) various series of paperback originals, including Op-Center, NetForce and Splinter Cell. (Former James Bond continuation author Raymond Benson penned the original novel in that series and a follow-up, Operation: Barracuda, under the pen name of David Michaels.) But Dead or Alive marked the first occasion on which the author collaborated on a book in his signature Jack Ryan series. It's unclear right now whether or not Against All Enemies is set in the Ryan Universe, though it is definitely a hardcover being billed as a Clancy original, and not part of one of those other series.  (The only other hardcover, fictional novel Clancy had previously collaborated on was Red Storm Rising, an adaptation of a videogame he conceived, and not part of the Ryan oeuvre.)  Borders offers the following description:

CIA agent Max Moore is a man on a mission. An unholy alliance between Islamic terrorists and Mexican drug cartels threatens the safety of America's southern border. Moore's new team has to infiltrate the warring cartels in order to uncover the plot, but doing that is next to impossible when there's a war on America's doorstep.

Whether it's a Jack Ryan story or not, this certainly sounds like vintage Clancy.  (Sort of like Clear and Present Danger meets The Sum of All Fears, in fact.)  And a vintage Clancy title, too (recalling Richard Clarke's seminal book of the same name on the War on Terror). Actually, I'm surprised he hadn't used it already! So while the next Jack Ryan movie remains in limbo (as reported yesterday), Clancy fans can at least get their fix in print—and plenty of it.

Read more about Against All Enemies here.

Alex Rider's Final Mission

The clock runs out today for teen spy Alex Rider. Anthony Horowitz's bestselling series comes to an end with today's publication of Scorpia Rising, the last Rider novel. In a rare occurence, the American edition from Philomel actually precedes the British edition from Walker, which isn't due out until March 31. (But the Brits get the superior cover art, so it all evens out in the end!) Will Alex survive his last mission? Legions of fans (well, American ones, anyway) will soon know the answer. But whether he does or not, Horowitz told NPR in an interview last August that "there is no way forward. The book is without any question the end of a very long journey that I have been taking." Scorpia Rising may well be the end of the road for Alex Rider, but certainly not for Horowitz. The Foyle's War creator was recently tapped to pen the first ever officially licensed Sherlock Holmes continuation novel, which is due out this fall. It's a move designed to further perpetuate the copyright holders' claim on the character, but despite their motivations, I have no doubt that Horowitz will deliver a fantastic and faithful adventure for the master detective.

Scorpia Rising, a $17.99 hardcover, is currently available at 40% off from Amazon.

Read my review of the previous Rider novel, 2009's Crocodile Tears, here.
Read my review of Eagle Strike (2004) here.

More Yuki 7 Coming This Summer!

Spy Vibe reports that my favorite fictional Sixties spy who never was is returning this summer, and I couldn't be more excited!  Yuki 7 is the creation of artist Kevin Dart first revealed to the world in the truly spectacular book Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7, written by Ada Cole.  In Seductive Espionage, Dart and Cole created a whole history of a very Eurospy-like Japanese Sixties secret agent series that never was.  It reads like a reference book along the lines of James Bond: The Legacy, revealing the behind-the-scenes history of the fake franchise (along with oodles of production artwork and "stills" and even pictures of collectibles and merchandise), but in doing so captures the essence of the spy genre (the Sixties brand, anyway) better than most narrative stories.  It's hard to encapsulate how good this book is in a few sentences, so if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, go on and read my original review here, accompanied by many of Dart's wonderful illustrations.  That will give you a better taste of it.  Anyway, the news here is that Dart is hard at work on a new Yuki 7 project, Looks That Kill, the first "Official Yuki 7 Adventure book." Written by Elizabeth Ito, Dart describes this one as "a full-blown spy story with loads of intrigue and gadgets and awesome fashions." So whereas the last book looked at Yuki as a (fictional) fictional creation, this one will treat her as a real spy. In other words, it could exist inside the universe of the first book, if that makes any sense.  Once again, of course, it will be lavishly illustrated by Dart, along with a host of talented collaborators.  Read more on Kevin Dart's blog!

Howard Gordon Discusses His Many Spy Projects in New Interview

TV Squad has a good, in-depth interview with 24 producer Howard Gordon in which he touches on all of his many spy projects, past and future, including 24 (the show and the upcoming movie), Homeland (his new Showtime series debuting this fall), Gideon's War (his novel) and Legends (the NBC series based on the Robert Littell novel about a CIA agent so deep into his cover identities that he loses sight of his own). Personally, I'm most interested in that last one, but unfortunately it doesn't sound likely to move forward—at least not with Gordon.  "This may be the last that we ever talk about [Legends]," he tells the website, somewhat cryptically.  Does that mean that he thinks it's unlikely to be picked up, or that if it is, his busy schedule (possibly including the new NBC show R.E.M.) means that he won't be involved with it?  Hard to say, but he does reveal that we should know within the next week or so if it's going to series or not. If it does, it's possible that Littell fans might be a little surprised. "It's a very, very compelling story," Gordon says, "although I threw out a lot of the source material. So it's been re-imagined pretty significantly." Eh, that's to be expected when translating a novel (especially a relatively thin one—for Littell, anyway) into an ongoing television series.  He describes the tone as darkly humorous, "but it is the sort of gallows humor, or rather, the very dry spy humor." Very dry spy humor—I like it! 

As for the 24 movie, Gordon contradicts Kiefer Sutherland's recent statements that it might film as early as January.  "The 24 movie is on hold for now, although conversations are ongoing. Beyond that, there is no news—at least as far as I know. The challenge is just not making it a movie for the sake of making a movie version of 24, but really having a compelling story ... simply making it good, frankly." Well, I'm as disappointed as any spy fan over the delay, but I'm encouraged by the commitment to quality. 

Those are just a few highlights. Read the whole interview, including news on future novels and Gordon's reflective thoughts on the 24 series, here.