It has been a pretty good decade or so for John le Carré fans looking for the spymaster’s works on the big screen. The 2000s have seen “The Tailor Of Panama,” “The Constant Gardner” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” hit theaters, with both “A Most Wanted Man” and “Our Kind Of Traitor” in post, while “Smiley’s People” continues in development. And now, yet another work by the author is making its way to the multiplex.
“The Departed” scribe William Monahan has been tapped to adapt le Carré’s upcoming novel, “A Delicate Truth.” Set to hit bookstores in a couple of weeks, the story centers on the execution and aftermath of a counter-terrorist operation. Here’s the book synopsis from Amazon:
A Delicate Truth opens in 2008. A counter-terrorist operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister’s personal private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it.
Cornwall, UK, 2011. A disgraced Special Forces Soldier delivers a message from the dead. Was Operation Wildlife the success it was cracked up to be—or a human tragedy that was ruthlessly covered up? Summoned by Sir Christopher (“Kit”) Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely observed by Kit’s beautiful daughter, Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and duty to his Service. If the only thing necessary to the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, how can he keep silent?
So yes, seems like it has all the international intrigue we’ve come to expect from le Carré, albeit with some very contemporary-flavored sauce added on top. The Ink Factory and BBC Films are developing the project, so it’s one more to keep on your radar. This film is the latest in a busy stretch for Monahan who has worked on the upcoming “Sin City: A Dame To Kill For” and has the remake of “Sympathy For Lady Vengeance” and his next directorial effort “Mojave” in the works. [Screen Daily]