Colin Firth to star in Charles Cumming's novel adaptation.

It’s happening! Colin Firth has bought the screen rights to the Kell novels. The author is just as excited as his readers of the possibility of his books turning into a TV show that stars Colin Firth.

“It’s fantastic,” said Charles Cumming, the author of the award-winning Thomas Kell espionage novels. “The idea is to do the Kell books — A Foreign Country, Colder War, A Divided Spy — as television,” he said. “So six hours of A Foreign Country along the lines of The Night Manager, a similar type of series, with Colin Firth playing Kell. I’m just about to start the script.”


Author Charles Cumming.                        Source: Standard

Cumming’s new thriller, A Divided Spy, is based on a race to stop an Islamist attack. Set in London, it tells the story of Kell’s mission to recruit a Russian spy and thwart a terror attack by a British extremist.

“A Divided Spy is the most London-centric of the Kell books,” he added. “There’s a lot of business at Somerset House, there’s Westfield and White City, an incident in Brook Green, it dances around a lot. It starts in a casino in Knightsbridge. That’s a whole other world. There’s also an extended anti-surveillance section so it’s moving around on the Tube, buses and taxis.”

 

 

Cumming began his career as a spy writer after being turned down for a job with MI6. He talks about his central character, an Islamist extremist,

"I was wrong. This is exactly the type of character that a writer of spy fiction should be writing about. It’s vital to understand why young Muslim men are turning towards such abhorrent violence. They begin as often well-educated middle-class boys from decent backgrounds with potential.”

On Thomas Kell, the fictional former MI6 agent who is the hero of his spy series, Cumming‎ says the character is based on "someone I knew" and that he receives advice from the intelligence world to help him maintain accuracy.