Interview with Jon Stock - Dead Spy Running and Hollywood!
Jon Stock is a novelist and journalist. His most recent book, Dead Spy Running has just been published and already it has been picked up by Hollywood to be made into what will be without doubt, a blockbuster film. We caught up with Jon to ask him all about it.
Bookarmy: Tell us about your new bookJon Stock: Dead Spy Running is about a young MI6 agent, Daniel Marchant, who is suspended. His father, a former chief of MI6, was suspected of treason and Daniel is under suspicion, too. The book opens at the London Marathon. Daniel is taking part with his girlfriend, a fellow agent, and spots a runner with a suicide belt. It soon transpires that he has to run at a certain pace otherwise the belt will blow, killing the US ambassador who is running along side him. Daniel hopes that his efforts to stop the bomber will prove his loyalty, but he finds himself being renditioned and then waterboarded by the CIA. Moving from Wiltshire, to a black site in Poland and finally on to India, Daniel tries to discover where his father’s loyalties really lay and unearths a far darker family secret.
BA: This is the first book in the thriller series, and already it has been picked up by Warner Brothers to make into a film! This must be incredibly exciting. Tell us how it happened? JS: I got the big call from Hollywood when I was on my evening train home to Wiltshire. Unfortunately, the train was packed and I was sitting in a quiet carriage. I had to whisper to the producer in LA, asking if she wouldn’t mind calling back in an hour, once I was home. It was a toe-curling moment – I hate talking on the phone in public anyway - and I feared they would never call again, but luckily they did.
I am very much keeping my feet on the ground as lots of books get optioned by film companies, but the word from Warner is that they are fast-tracking the film. Certainly, they appear to mean business, having hired Stephen Gaghan to write the screenplay. Gaghan won an oscar for Traffic and wrote and directed Syriana, the rather wonderful film that starred George Clooney. I’ve had a couple of chats with him on the phone and on Skype, and he’s expected to deliver the first draft in August. Cleverly, Warner intend to mix Gaghan’s cerebal approach with McG, a director who has real panache for action. He directed the latest Terminator film, which featured some incredible action sequences. I like the combination, but there’s still a very long way to go.
BA: If you could choose one word that you’d like to see critics everywhere using to describe your book, what would it be? (Feel free to be as vain as you like)JS: Compelling.
BA: Which three authors or books do you consider most significant and why?JS: I love early
John Le Carre (and I also really enjoyed
A Most Wanted Man, his
latest). I carried a copy of
The Spy Who Came in From The Cold around with me when I was writing
Dead Spy Running. I love its tautness, but also the stark symmetry of the plot. It’s put together like a swiss watch, with everything perfectly balanced.
The Riddle of the Sands, by Erskine Childers, is also a riveting book, often described as the first spy thriller. There’s a lot of slack water in its plotting and narrative, but that’s one of the joys. The atmosphere – fog, shifting sandbanks, ships in the night – is as beguiling as the authentic feel of the story: a German fleet is about to invade Britain.
I have never read any of
Robert Ludlum’s books, but I owe him a lot, as I love the Jason Bourne films, which are, of course, based on his books. I’m particularly fond of films one and three – the scene in Waterloo station is breathtaking. I have shamelessly parked my moped on Bourne’s lawn.
Dead Spy Running is, I hope, a mix of the Jason Bourne films and John Le Carre’s books.
BA: Are you working on anything at the moment?
JS: Yes, I’m working on book two.
Dead Spy Running is the first of a trilogy. It’s going well and there’s nothing better to focus the mind than someone coming up to you and saying, “I’ve just finished
Dead Spy Running and I’m dying to know what happens next!”
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