Best page to screen spies

Here’s the scene: Oct. 10, 1963. The Odeon Leicester Square Theater in London. 

Limos arrive one after the other and stars like Sean Connery, Robert Shaw and Lois Maxwell and the ever resourceful Miss Moneypenny sweep up the red carpet.

“From Russia with Love” is considered by many to be one of the best Bond films.

Remember how a beautiful Russian spy defects from the embassy in Istanbul to the UK and demands that James Bond be assigned to her case.

Pulling the puppet strings in the background? None other than SPECTRE!

James Bond made a very successful leap from the pages of Ian Fleming’s novels to the big screen.

Here are two other cinematic spies you can read and watch and one fabulous spy who should have her own TV series!

Robert Ludlum created Jason Bourne in 1980 when “The Bourne Identity” was published.  

It would be another 22 years before Bourne, played by Matt Damon, made it to the big screen.  

I’m a huge fan of John le Carré's espionage novels but one of my favorite page-to screen adaptations is “Little Drummer Girl.”  

Charlie is recruited by the Israeli Mossad to go undercover to suss out a Palestinian bomber.

In the screen version, Florence Pugh is terrific as the recruit and Michael Shannon as her handler.  

And one more fabulous spy who deserves her own series right now! If you haven’t read the Vera Kelly novels, put them on your winter reading list.  

Created by Rosalie Knecht in 2018, the first in the series, “Who is Vera Kelly” revolves around Vera, a young queer former juvenile delinquent who finds herself in Buenos Aires pursuing some young activists.

She’s intrepid, sassy and Knecht says the series was inspired by a maternal grandparent who worked for the CIA. 

If you have a favorite fictional spy, tell me about them at kmiller@mpr.org


— Kerri Miller | MPR News

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