AGENT RUNNING IN THE FIELD: New John le Carré Novel Coming in 2019!

John le Carré announced a new novel today, coming in 2019! He may be in the second half of his Eighties now, but, happily, the undisputed master of the spy genre keeps going strong. While either a personal memoir (2016's The Pigeon Tunnel) or a novel revisiting his most famous character, George Smiley, one last(?) time (2017's A Legacy of Spies) both seemed like they might be fitting moments to retire, le Carré clearly still has more to say. Agent Running in the Field will be released by Penguin/Viking on October 17, 2019 in the UK, and October 22, 2019 in the U.S. UK bookseller Waterstones and Amazon UK already has it available to pre-order. Here's the publisher's blurb on the new thriller:

Set in London in 2018, Agent Running in the Field follows a twenty-six year old solitary figure who, in a desperate attempt to resist the political turbulence swirling around him, makes connections that will take him down a very dangerous path. In his plot and characterisation le Carré is as thrilling as ever and in the way he writes about our times he proves himself, once again, to be the greatest chronicler of our age.

Agent Running in the Field will be the author's 25th novel. His first, Call for the Dead (review here) was published in 1961. Le Carré's work continues to be popular in other mediums as well. There have been recent feature film adaptations of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, A Most Wanted Man, and Our Kind of Traitor, and television miniseries versions of The Night Manager and, most recently, The Little Drummer Girl, based on his 1983 novel. Park Chan-Wook's visually stunning six-part adaptation recently aired on AMC in America and the BBC in Britain.

Tradecraft: Paramount Picks SICARIO Sequel Director Sollima to Direct Michael B. Jordan in Tom Clancy's WITHOUT REMORSE

Deadline reports that Sicario: Day of the Soldado director Stefano Sollima is in talks to direct Michael B. Jordan in Paramount's next Tom Clancy movie, Without Remorse.

After a couple of underperforming movies, Clancy's famous CIA analyst Jack Ryan has finally found success on TV thanks to Amazon. Now Paramount hopes to build a new feature franchise around Clancy's other main hero, covert warrior John Clark. In September, Deadline reported that the studio has tapped Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther, Fruitvale Station) to star.

Clark, who became known as "Jack Ryan's dark side," was first introduced in Clancy's third Ryan novel, The Cardinal of the Kremlin in 1987, but retconned in Clear and Present Danger (when field man Clark and analyst Ryan finally meet face to face) to have also played an important role in the events of Patriot Games. He went on to take center stage in the Clancy novels Without Remorse (which goes back to Vietnam) and Rainbow Six. Clark is a former Navy Seal and off-books CIA field operator. In the films, he's been played by Willem Dafoe (in Clear and Present Danger opposite Harrison Ford as Ryan) and Liev Schrieber (in The Sum of All Fears opposite Ben Affleck).

Paramount hopes, of course, to launch a franchise. The plan is to start with Without Remorse, then do Rainbow Six. This is the reason that Clark has, sadly, not appeared on Amazon's TV show Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. Because the studio was planning a film, they didn't allow the show's producers to use Clark. That's really too bad, as both characters work better together. In the books, they compliment each other, as Ryan is frequently deskbound, and Clark is always up to his neck in action. There was a plan a few years ago to (re-)introduce Clark and Ryan individually in two feature films, Without Remorse and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, respectively, with This Means War co-stars Tom Hardy and Chris Pine playing Clark and Ryan (again, respectively), then team them up, Marvel-style, in a third film. (At that point Mission: Impossible - Fallout director Christopher McQuarrie was attached to Without Remorse.) Sadly, Shadow Recruit bombed and those plans never came to fruition. (Hardy has also been linked to another Clancy franchise, Splinter Cell.)

Italian director Sollima, who first achieved international acclaim for his mob drama Gomorra, is a good choice to launch a potential Clancy franchise. His Sicario sequel was more than a tad Clancy-esque, playing at first like an unofficial adaptation of Clear and Present Danger before going a different direction in its second half. Sollima did a good job blending compelling characterizations with military hardware fetishism, a crucial skill set for tackling Clancy material. Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) will produce alongside Jordan and screenwriting duo Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec (Alias, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol).

It's unclear whether Sollima's Without Remorse will be a Vietnam-era period piece like the book (which would be fantastic!), or updated to a contemporary setting. Sadly, I suspect the latter. (Though if I were the president of Paramount, I would seriously consider the franchise prospects of a historical setting, which could ultimately follow Clark through three decades of CIA covert actions across multiple films....)

Eric Van Lustbader Quits as Bourne Continuation Author

Bestselling author Eric Van Lustbader announced today in an exclusive interview with The Real Book Spy that he is stepping down as the official author of the Jason Bourne continuation novels. Lustbader was hired by Robert Ludlum's estate in the early 2000s to continue the adventures of Ludlum's famous amnesiac assassin character following the success of the Matt Damon movies, despite Ludlum's own Bourne trilogy having reached a pretty definitive conclusion. From 2004 to 2016, Lustbader wrote ten Jason Bourne novels, far outpacing the character's creator. Furthermore, the author's previously announced eleventh Bourne novel, The Bourne Nemesis, will likely never see completion.

"What I found," he told the website,"when I started to go back and work on polishing the draft, was that I just didn’t want to do it. Every time I would sit down to do it, I would start writing something else and that made me realize, finally, that I just didn’t want to do it anymore." He elaborated, "I had pretty much said everything that I wanted to say with Bourne, and . . . I wanted to do something different. Something more."

Lustbader has maintained a grueling schedule over this past decade, most years producing both a Bourne continuation novel and an original novel featuring his own characters. He's not the first continuation author to become fatigued. John Gardner also grew weary balancing a James Bond novel every year during the 1980s and early '90s with his own (considerably lengthier) spy fiction (the excellent Herbie Kruger novels and the Secret Generations epic). Writing schedules like that can't be easy!

This likely isn't the last of Jason Bourne on the printed page. The Ian Fleming estate (operating first as Glidrose Publications, and later Ian Fleming Publications) commissioned Raymond Benson to continue the Bond series, and later settled on a strategy of appointing different authors for different books, with Anthony Horowitz recently becoming the first writer since Benson to pen more than one novel in the main series. The Ludlum Estate has followed a similar strategy with other series created by the late novelist. Numerous writers have tried their hands at Covert-One novels (a series which was handed off to other writers even in Ludlum's lifetime, and indeed created with that strategy in mind), and at least two writers have continued the adventures of Paul Janson, hero of one of Ludlum's final novels, The Janson Directive (review here). I strongly suspect we'll see another new Bourne novel sooner or later with a new name on the cover.

Meanwhile, head over to The Real Book Spy to read the entire, in-depth interview with Lustbader including his future plans.

Trailer: KIM POSSIBLE Live-Action Movie

Today, Disney Channel dropped the slightly underwhelming first full trailer for their upcoming live action Kim Possible movie, and announced a premiere date. It will premiere Friday, Feb. 15 at 8 ET/PT on Disney Channel and DisneyNOW. And, thanks to Deadline, we finally know a little bit more about the plot. This won't be a continuation of the cult animated show, nor will it take place within the series' continuity. Rather, it will be a full reboot, and an origin story for Kim. (It was never explained on the show how she came to be a teenage superspy beyond having inherited good genes from her brain surgeon mom and rocket scientist dad.)

While the series concluded with Kim's high school graduation, the live-action Kim Possible will pick up just as Kim and sidekick Ron Stoppable are first starting Middleton High School, and (in a page out of the Buffy playbook), the ultra-capable young woman finds navigating the classrooms and social hierarchy of high school much more difficult than saving the world. Kim will compete with her rival and frenemy Bonnie Rockwaller not for a spot on the cheerleading squad, as she did on the TV show, but the school's soccer team. And Ron will acquire his pet naked mole rat, Rufus, over the course of the telefilm. The pair will be joined on their mission by a new friend, Athena, who quickly surpasses Kim as the trio, along with gadget maker and tech expert Wade, take on the villainous Dr. Drakken and his henchwoman Shego. (Do you think the hitherto unknown Athena will turn out to be a double agent?)

I really wish this were being done as a big budget, theatrical film. The actors look fine in this trailer, but without the spacious, Ken Adam-inspired sets, and lit like a 90s TV pilot with way too much blue, it just doesn't look like Kim Possible. Here's hoping they prove me wrong! It is, after all, co-written by series creators Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle (along with The Duff's Josh Cagan).

Sadie Stanley stars as Kim Possible; Sean Giambrone (The Goldbergs) plays Ron. Todd Stashwick (12 Monkeys) and Taylor Ortega (Succession) co-star as Dr. Drakken and Shego; Ciara Wilson (OMG!) as newcomer Athena; Alyson Hannigan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Kim’s mom; Issac Ryan Brown (Raven’s Home) as Wade; and Erika Tham (Make It Pop) as Bonnie. Patton Oswalt reprises his voice role from the animated series as villain Professor Dementor, and original Kim Possible voice Christy Carlson Romano has a cameo.

Tradecraft: NBC's ENEMY WITHIN Explores Interagency Espionage Antics

Interagency espionage rivalries are all the rage on network television these days. We're getting closer to the premiere of Whiskey Cavalier, the show I've been most looking forward to this season, which takes a romantic, comedic look at the relationship between CIA and FBI agents. Hulu (which, I know, isn't network), of course, had The Looming Tower this year (currently racking up awards nominations and mentions on critics' year end lists), a very serious exploration of the disconnect between America's various intelligence agencies leading up to the massive intelligence failure of 9/11. Now NBC is gearing up to use the FBI/CIA rivalry as a backdrop for what Deadline describes as "a fast-paced thriller set in the world of counterintelligence," The Enemy Within.

The Enemy Within boasts an impressive spy pedigree. Covert Affairs creators Matt Corman and Chris Ord produce (along with Gotham's Ken Woodruf), and the cast includes Morris Chestnut (Legends), Kelli Garner (Pan-Am), Raza Jaffrey (Spooks/MI-5), and Coral Peña (24: Legacy), along with Jennifer Carpenter (who apparently voiced Black Widow in some animated Marvel short, so that counts as some spy cred, right?) Here's how NBC describes the series, which is expected to premiere mid-season:

In this fast-paced, spy-hunting thriller, Erica Shepherd (Jennifer Carpenter) is a brilliant former CIA operative now known as the most notorious traitor in American history serving life in a Supermax prison. Against every fiber of his being but with nowhere else to turn, FBI Agent Will Keaton (Morris Chestnut) enlists Shepherd to help track down a fiercely dangerous and elusive criminal she knows all too well. For Keaton, it's not easy to trust the woman who cost him so much. While Shepherd and Keaton have different motivations for bringing the enemy to justice, they both know that to catch a spy... they must think like one.

Mezco Made a Diabolik Action Figure... and You Can Pre-Order it Now!

Toy company Mezco has been displaying a prototype for a Diabolik action figure since at least summer of 2017, and I was beginning to wonder if it would ever actually happen. Then, last week, they did a blog post offering a good precis on the character's history, and also reassurance that Diabolik was still on their mind. And yesterday, the figure became available for pre-order on the Mezco website! (Be warned though... it isn't cheap. You may want to polish off your own suction cup climbers and stake out Mezco's warehouse!)

Shipping in summer 2019, the figure is part of Mezco's high-end One:12 Collective figures. Those figures are known for their realistic clothing and ultra posability. The figure runs about 16cm tall (a little over 6 inches), and features over 30 points of articulation. It comes with two interchangeable heads (one masked, the other not), and eight interchangeable hands to create various poses or grip accessories like throwing knives or loot.

Mezco's Diabolik figure is based on the Italian comic book (fumetti neri) character created by the Giussani sisters, and not specifically on Mario Bava's sublime 1968 film version thereof (one of the all-time classic Eurospy titles), so the maskless likeness sadly doesn't resemble John Phillip Law. But the film costume was so true to the comic (as was its logo) that with the mask on you can easily pretend your figure is Law's Diabolik! And it's a damn cool figure either way. Diabolik may be a master thief and not a spy, but the Jaguar-driving supercriminal embodies so many tropes of the Sixties spy fantasy! (As does the movie.) Let's hope this toy sells well and Mezco follows it up with a matching Eva Kant figure!

Check out the figure in detail and put in a pre-order (requiring a $20 deposit) on Mezco's site.

To get an idea of how the prototype developed over the past fewyears, check out toy news sites like Super Punch or Action Figure Fury, both of whom posted good images from various conventions.

Read my review of Bava's Danger: Diabolik (one of my all-time favorite movies) here.

Tradecraft: Marvel Plots SHANG-CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU Movie

Deadline reports that among the next wave of Marvel Cinematic Universe titles to follow in the wake of the fourth Avengers movie will be Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. For spy fans, this is staggering news! The comic book The Hands of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu was created in the early Seventies to (obviously) cash in on the kung fu craze of the time. Comics legends Steve Englehart (Batman: Strange Apparitions) and Jim Starlin (Avengers: Infinity War) originated the character, but it was the dynamic writer/artist team of Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy (who would later re-team on one of the best James Bond comics ever, Dark Horse's Serpent's Tooth) who became most associated with Shang-Chi... and who gave the comic a new direction as an espionage series.

Shang-Chi's real world origins at Marvel are a bit complicated, as the publisher had acquired the rights to Sax Rohmer's villainous Fu Manchu character, but Englehart was more interested in the popular TV series of the time, Kung Fu. So he incorporated Rohmer's characters Fu Manchu and his nemesis, British adventurer Sir Denis Nayland-Smith, but invented a new character to star in the series more inspired by Kung Fu... Fu Manchu's hitherto unknown son, Shang-Chi. Though the father had seen to it that the son was trained from birth to be a Master of Kung Fu, when Shang-Chi discovered that the father he believed to be be munificent was actually a diabolical criminal mastermind, he turned on him, and found employment with Nayland-Smith and the British Secret Service. In the hands of Moench and Gulacy, secret agent Shang-Chi encountered all manner of spy hijinks, from moles inside MI6 to supervillains with private islands, gadgets galore, and robotic armies. He also developed a roster of memorable sidekicks, including Nayland-Smith's assistant and bodyguard Black Jack Tarr (drawn by Gulacy to resemble Sean Connery in The Man Who Would Be King), and fellow MI6 agent Clive Reston (drawn by Gulacy at first to resemble Connery in Goldfinger, but later looking more and more like Roger Moore), who is strongly hinted to be the son of James Bond and the grand-nephew of Sherlock Holmes.

While Marvel's most famous spy agency, S.H.I.E.L.D., never showed up in the pages of Master of Kung Fu (though Shang-Chi did eventually team up with Nick Fury and Black Widow in a multi-issue arc of Marvel Team-Up), Gulacy's stunning artwork owed a clear debt to Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. artist Jim Steranko. Like Steranko, Gulacy reveled in quasi-sci-fi technology and weaponry and innovative, experimental page layouts. (One particular standout turned the page into a maze, following Shang-Chi's progress against a variety of opponents as he navigated the labyrinth.) He also brought his own obsessions to the table, like Bond-inspired, movie poster-style splash pages, relentlessly sexy women in proto-Gaultier fashions, and the liberal use of famous actors' likenesses to "cast" the book with everyone from Bruce Lee (upon whom Gulacy's Shang-Chi was clearly based) to Marlon Brando, Christopher Lee (as Fu Manchu, of course), and even Groucho Marx. The result was a truly unique book that far transcended (and consequently outlasted) the kung fu movie trend from which it was born, and drew influence from all sorts of popular culture. I think it may be my very favorite Marvel comic. Long unavailable outside of back issue bins, the entire 125-issue series has at long last been reprinted over the past few years in four massive, hardcover omnibus volumes, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Marvel has also recently begun a line of cheaper paperback "Epic Collections."

As for the movie, it's hard to say how closely it will resemble the comic book. But I certainly hope Chinese-American screenwriter Dave Callaham (Jean-Claude Van Johnson) retains the heightened espionage vibe, and the supporting character of Clive Reston. Marvel is, of course, hoping that a superhero film with an Asian lead and Asian and Asian-American talent behind the camera (they are looking to hire a director of Asian descent) will find similar box office success to their excellent black superhero pic Black Panther and this past summer's megahit and milestone for cinematic representation, Crazy Rich Asians. Not since the kung fu craze of the early Seventies has the moment been so right for a Shang-Chi movie! I can't wait to see who they cast as Shang-Chi, and who gets chosen to direct. This movie has the potential to finally deliver a spy film heightened to futuristic Marvel proportions on a truly epic scale!