S8 Ep17: Spy Game Trilogy, with Michael Frost Beckner and guest host Stephen England

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Due to the themes of this podcast, listen or discretion is advised.

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Lock your doors, close the blinds, change your passwords, this is Secrets and Spies.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism,

[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_03]: geopolitics and intrigue. This episode is presented by Matt Fulton and produced by Chris Carr.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone, welcome back to Secrets and Spies!

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_00]: It's Matt here, although you won't be hearing much of me. We have a guest host for today's episode, which is a first for the podcast.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_00]: My friend, in Indy Spy, author Stephen England, who's been on the show a couple times,

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: will be talking with Michael Frost Beckner. Michael is a screenwriter and spy novelist, perhaps best known for his spy game trilogy,

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_00]: which was adapted into the 2001 film starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: He joined Stephen for a deep dive into that trilogy, his broader career as a writer,

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and dropped some details on books still to come. I hope you'll enjoy their conversation as much as I did.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_00]: A couple of house-cleaning notes before we get started. I want to thank all of our listeners who are currently supporting us on Patreon.

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[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. With that out of the way, let's get going.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_03]: The opinions expressed by guests on secrets and spies do not necessarily represent those of the producers and sponsors of this podcast.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Good afternoon folks. This is Stephen England. I'm joined here today on the other side of the bright lights here at secrets and spies by Michael Beckner.

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_01]: It's honored to have you here with us today, Michael. Why don't you introduce yourself for those who might have been living under a rock and not familiar with your work?

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Well certainly. Yeah, I'm very happy to be here. I've made my career in Hollywood actually.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_04]: I spent over 30 years writing movies and television.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Been very blessed to have a robust career at that.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_04]: I'd started out, however, at the University of Southern California following my life long passion up to that point to be a novelist.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_04]: And I was fortunate to study under TC Boyle, a very prolific literary author.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_04]: And that all went well. It got time for my thesis and been, I guess, early 20s was faced with the prospect of being in my fraternity as the president of my fraternity and having fun by college senior year.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Or writing 400 pages of a novel, you know, double spaced wide margins. And I thought, oh no, this is not a happy book.

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_04]: So I petitioned to do a master's thesis in screenwriting, USC, which has the font at film school, did not at the time have a screenwriting program.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_04]: They were specific to training producers and directors, but they had a master's degree in screenwriting through the journalism school.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_04]: I think it was. And so there wasn't an intention to go into Hollywood at the time. It was really kind of cheating.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_04]: I knew enough to know that screenplays, you get an F if it's over, you know, 126 years.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_04]: And the margins are very narrow. And it's a lot of white space on the pages is a good screenplay. So I thought I'd pulled a fast one.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_04]: And so I wrote a script and got my thesis that way.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_04]: And then I went into writing publicity for Walt Disney Studios.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_04]: And it was really, it was the olden days where they'd send to the newspapers and, and, whoever, a publicity kit with, you know, typed up summary and then black and white photos from the film.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_04]: My job was to write the caption under the photo. So it would be.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Brair fox and Brair Bear throw, Brair Rabbit into the right copy right Walt Disney Piberd Auctions 1950, whatever.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And anyway that was that was my job and I wasn't really writing a book or anything else.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_04]: I was writing screenplays. I did, I did realize that I liked it and I was, I was fairly good at it.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_04]: And so I put the novel thing aside.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And in a very odd way, I came to very lovingson the director of Rainman and many, many other things.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_04]: I came to his attention on a film called Tinman because my other job in the still department was the 35 millimeter still film.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_04]: The came off the set. My job was to make sure Richard Dreyfus's eyes were open, you know, Danny DeVito wasn't cropped out of the picture, Barbara Hershey didn't look strange.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Anyway, as a chimp could do the job really, but I was the chimp and so I'd send that back to this.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Look for some reason he really liked the photos I chose.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_04]: I became his writing assistant on good morning Vietnam and then Rainman.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_04]: And his partner, gentlemen named Mark Johnson, knew that I had ambitions as a screenwriter.

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_04]: He said, you know, you can use all our facilities, all the time do the screenwriting thing.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And always ask us to look at whatever you write and very encouraging him.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_04]: And I worked there and made my way up there.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_04]: I sold a script called Sniper, they made it into a film with Tom Barrenger and I think they just made the release the 10th one a few weeks ago.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_04]: They keep making these movies which is it's wonderful.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_04]: The anyway, it had been kind of funny because I'd written a bunch of more Barry Levin's and asked scripts, you know why I was in there, figure, you know, given something like they do.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And they passed and passed and they didn't really prefer them and they didn't think I was doing a very good job, I think.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_04]: So this one since it was sort of brutal and about Marine snipers in Panama.

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_04]: I just didn't want to embarrass them and embarrass me and and I just so I put it aside.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_04]: I got, I was on my honeymoon and I get a call from the studio, try Star Pictures at the time.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_04]: And they said we just read your script and we're buying it and what it great gift it was like, how did you get it?

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Mark Johnson brought it in and I'm like, oh man.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_04]: So I got it. Yeah, it was in your office. I was looking for some some coverage and I found this script and I loved it and we're buying it more making it so get on with it.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_04]: We're going to make the film anyway that started my screen writing career.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_04]: And so I didn't really go back to the novel thing for quite a while.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_04]: I got pigeonholed it was about the time that a lot of the money from Japan and international money was coming into Hollywood Canada.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And Europe, and they were making these mini mini studios like Caroko Pictures and Margo and these mini majors they called him.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_04]: It was also after a writer's strike and I hadn't been in the guild so I wasn't in the union so I was allowed to write.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_04]: And I, I lucked out again and it was in the heyday of spec scripts original spec scripts that aren't an adaptation aren't taken from a magazine article.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_04]: And I was very fortunate to write three and a row one year after the next after the next and broke all the records.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_04]: And I got a little offended.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_04]: And when I think lethal weapon three or something came my way and I said you know we need you to punch up the action here.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_04]: And I looked at it and I'm like this thing's wall to wall action that's not a problem with this at all the problem here is this isn't.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_04]: There's no relationship to reality of how human beings are this is just wacky nonsense and it doesn't make sense nothing anyone saying makes sense in conversation.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_04]: So I said you need a character re right and they said you're the action guy do not touch the characters.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_04]: And what you're doing I got really offended.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_04]: And so I said I, you know I'm going to write a character thing yeah so that led me to spiking and it had been spiking had been the novel I was going to write and I've been working on it all these years.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_04]: And I thought you know what I'm just going to lock off the last third of this book and write it as a spec screen play which I did and that was the film that became spiking.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_04]: Because it wasn't an action movie there was one of the brothers wanted to buy it and wanted me to make it you know all about taking clocks and running and jumping with guns.

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_04]: And I passed on that and then beacon pictures took it they didn't have a lot of money.

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_04]: They weren't a distributor but they said we're going to make your film.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_04]: And so the only thing I asked for I said well you can make the film of this script and that's it.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_04]: I keep the characters I keep the world I keep the rest of they didn't want to buy the manuscript.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_04]: And they just wanted the script so that was the deal and so that allowed me in my own teeny tiny it's a bitty George Lucas he way to keep all the rights.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_04]: And then and then it went from there and then you know I just took those when I got with my career in film where I was fairly kind of done with it.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_04]: I moved into television and and that's a lot in film it sort of fire and forget you're the writer if you do a good job your your job's done before camera rolls.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_04]: In TV you do all of it you hire the actors you hired the director each week you run the writers room and I did that for 10 years on on various shows my own.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Show the agency at CBS was sort of the high point of it although I did.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I've got I've got a question I've got a question or two year to ask you about that as we get in the talking about the books but yeah.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so at the end that's what it did around COVID or maybe the year before I took out the spy game manuscript.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_04]: That first part was me or his gambit.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_04]: So I wrote that then I jumped over and wrote bishops and gain and aching and check.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And then I wrote a book at the same time called Berlin Mason and that's where you meet me now.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so yeah that's an interesting history obviously spy game is long been a classic of the genre it's one of my favorite spy films and I think that's true for a lot of other.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of other spy fans Charles Bowmont and his spy, spy barrient review just the other day mentioned is one of his favorite spy films so yeah that was very kind to hear that I was quite quite humbled to hear that from him.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_04]: He's book was amazing it really meant a lot to hear that.

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so to talk about your books that kind of brought now to the spy game universe I was very interested when I first picked them up because naturally I had a lot of memories of the of the film and I was thinking that it probably would be would be focusing on the viewpoints of like either like

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Mur Nathan Merr or Tom Bishop something like that and I I start reading into I'm like wait, I can who's aching and so I'm the interesting you're talking a bit about your choice of a vacant as the narrator because in a lot of ways he's not so much a traditional spy novel protagonist.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I think a lot of the authors would have gone for Nathan Merr or Tom Bishop as kind of the central storyteller, but you you focused on Russell aching who he's played in he's played by Todd Boyce in the film it's a very very small part.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: But he really comes into his eye and in these books so why don't you tell us a bit about that.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, okay, so so with that script because that first part of the of the manuscript was never included in the script it didn't make sense to give aching the role that he'd had in Mirrors Gambit in the film that was an easy thing to cut out of the film and also it gave me.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_04]: I also did it because I wanted to preserve that I didn't want to give that away at all or give anything away the reason I chose to do to focus that.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_04]: The books on Russell aching is because you know with with spy game and it was like my conversation with Lorenzo de Bonaventura Warner Brothers back in the day I did not want this to be.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_04]: A classic spy running and jumping save the world thing my interest really.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Lay in at the time and lies in the human condition of spies and we can go into that my relationship with them and I've had a long relationship with a number of people that have worked in that field.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Mir being based on someone I knew since my childhood he's based on a lot of things but the one main guy.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_04]: I wanted to take it from a different point of view.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Looking at espionage if we're getting rid of the cut the red wire or the blue wire or each book you got to save the world there's a lot better authors that write that a lot better than I do.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_04]: In my literary career I'm much more interested in the human condition and this and espionage has a real nice entry into that because the human condition of trying to meet a moral stance and find a moral place.

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Within what you do and within yourself.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_04]: You know the quest for for meaning and the divine not necessarily a named god or a Christian god or any other religion god but the divine in life.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_04]: That's kind of what I'm interested in espionage is nice because the boundaries are so blurred.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_04]: There entirely blurred you have.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Your sanction to do things that are legal for your country but are certainly absolutely illegal everywhere else and just because your country says so gives you the right is kind of interesting and gives you the justification and morality.

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_04]: We see and you have to take a James Bond they're running around they get their orders from.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_04]: From headquarters and they go run around the world doing all these things breaking all sorts of international law and and they do it and they say the world and that's terrific.

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_04]: But there certainly has to be laws that guide them within their own thing and that's where I came to rest awake and and I always found it fascinating.

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Talking with the people that I knew in that business of how what operation is planned what parameters it has within our own government with the seat working with the CIA and what legal hurdles it has and everything else and how that's.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_04]: So verdant or stuck to and you know even do this and you can't do that.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_04]: I thought he was kind of a nice nice perspective we hadn't seen before whose the damn lawyer who papers these deals, you know who's the guy that's doing it and what is that doing to him.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_04]: And so that's why I wanted to take that also you know it gives a nice balance them between mirror and bishop and we can see them doing their thing.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_04]: He can kind of holding judgment on them and he has his own personal hangups about the two men that the book explores, but he's also entirely wrapped up in why they're doing what they're doing.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_04]: He certainly can't just wipe his hands and say oh yeah I don't approve of that or they didn't follow those rules and he's part of it.

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_04]: He's part of it and I found that interesting it goes back to I have a real it's mentioned in mirrors.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but achon matches it a real fondness for Charles Dickens a tale of two cities which is which is a spinal that's definitely about espionage during the French Revolution British espionage and and the character of Cindy Carton.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Who's the drunk lawyer who ends up you know becoming the hero the hero of it.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Certainly starts as an anti hero and so achon sort of shares a little bit with him and about personal responsibility and and ultimately with by the third book, you know, is it following your heart or love of country or or love which is the question in the third book but that's kind of the way to do.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_04]: The way I wanted to do it in that way I can balance both off it also his own set of problems and is only of looking at things in the and and what he wants from your and Bishop and what they want to draw out of what they need from him.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Really was the last point of a pyramid that makes it makes these things not just a there's the handler and there's the asset and they're running in jumping and run in missions which again other people do better than I do.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you have achon who's tasked with trying to make everything that they all the illegal things they do legal.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_04]: That's right, that's right and and and how he lives with himself with that.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it's a fast it's really fascinating perspective in the books there's so much about achon's perspective that I and I found myself reflecting on this as I as I read further into the series thinking that in a lot of ways there's there's a lot of aspects of the book that.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_01]: As I'm reading it, I think to myself this shouldn't work, but it does.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a great tribute to your to your writing and all that you accomplish with the books because it really does come together in a way that I described it at the end of reading the second book as a bit of a clotoscopic effect which.

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_01]: That then takes on special significance in the third book that I didn't even realize when I made those comments, but we'll let readers figure some of that out for themselves.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's very interesting in the way that toward the end of a book all of a sudden it's like the clotoscope gets shifted and you look back on the book like oh everything just took on a new light and some of that is the circumstances themselves some of those achons.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a great opportunity to see them because he goes through a lot of interesting mental and even physical challenges through the series if you'd like to talk a bit more about his state of mind as it were.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, okay well his state of mind is he's quite an odd ball I think.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_04]: He's a very nice guy and he's an odd ball he's he really.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh boy well his it is a kaleidoscope and it does shift in that way as life does for for people all the time he.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_04]: He a lot of times leads with the absolute if he says something real quick and makes the decision very fast unlike a James Bond who the guy that was a good quick decision it's usually the wrong decision was him I think we all can can live with that we all know that.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_04]: You know those rash decisions usually lead you in the wrong way it is it's a world of he's living in a world where everything is about deception deception is how you survive and he's trying to be honest to himself and so that's that first shift of the kaleidoscope where it is.

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_04]: In in a world where everyone is sanctioned to lie and is lying where do you fit in he's he's the one who writes that he's trying not to take the work home as he's I believe puts it at one point.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but who doesn't take their work home?

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean who does it and so he's living with that in in a higher stakes environment than the rest of us.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_04]: I think with the second it's not really a spoiler because you know I'm by by the first you pay to me as he's dealing then with a skewed perception in the second book from a medical condition.

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_04]: And and that then puts his so we've dealt with in the first book if you live a life of lies what what is really your truth and he's struggling with that through that first one and and you know he's such a.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_04]: He's kind of a liner in that first but because he's like why are you guys always lying to me.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_04]: But he realizes that's the world they work in and dude you're doing it to you're doing it yourself you're doing it with your wife you're doing it with with the people you love and you got to get you got to get right with that well the second one then.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_04]: deals with identity and he has a medical condition where his own perception of reality and identity becomes a little confused and so that shifts that that lens again that we look at.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_04]: His view he always grows through it but he's always thinking everyone else has got all the problems and he's just trying to patch holes in the boat.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_04]: It's looking at all these other people's struggles with identity if you live a false identity and that's your job as a spy you're presenting yourself as a false identity.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_04]: But if you're living that say 23 seven that's your identity and isn't that as real and defining of who you are as a man or a woman.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_04]: And so all the characters deal with that as he's he's narrating it looking at it and trying to see this struggle for identity.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And it reflects back on him and his own identity is crumbling because of a medical condition he's actually losing his own identity by the third book it takes the idea of false reality and the life of lies this of the first book the second book.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Faults identity and appearance is reality because you're setting that up and then looks at okay that's how you you relate your job is about information.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Then it and it looks at in the third book this theft of information stealing information trying to get information but.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_04]: In information physics and the third book goes into the office of technical services and how you know you don't just get given the keys to the car that have the defibrillator because oh my gosh you're going to get poison on your hand and have a heart attack but it got a defibrillator you got.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_04]: And that's not how it works really when they need something operational for the field it goes through you got to identify what that need is going to be and what you're looking at what you want to spy on.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Then what do you want you got to give that to the people in the scientific department what's the magic wand you need and they got to figure out a way to make that magic wand and then what is it.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_04]: So that's where the third book goes but what we realize and what is I think is it is a truth is the way you get information and take information and process information.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Is is married and impacted by your perspectives your identity your what you are the person receiving information.

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Colors that information immediately once he touches it with his own place so in the third one achens perception again changes and.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_04]: So in the third one his his medical condition has changed it organically from what happened to him before and it gives him another perspective on sort of his reality and and and the theft of information and how they're stealing secrets and.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_04]: That's for aching miss mirror and bishop really need to be the spies that we follow.

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_04]: To do the spy story stuff, you know, you can get dragged into it each time and you know I think that's a little bit where some of the humor in the book comes through partly because he always wanted to be bishop I mean he.

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_01]: He started out wanting to be the guy in the field and then it gets pigeonholed off to the office of general counsel.

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I think I think with that with a can I think we can all relate to that we all wish we were the hero in our own stories and and it takes us a long time to realize that we really are the hero of this story.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_04]: We just the our heroism and the things that we do heroically are small victories.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_04]: We're not going to be bishop, but but bishop is the person that relies on us the bishop's in our life they always rely on us and and that's kind of what aching have that's what mirror and bishop are driving aching towards.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Except who you are because you're our hero. You're the guy that keeps it all together we can't know what we need you and boy, but he fights against that throughout and.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that makes the drama.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say another thing about aching the other thing that I did, which is different from screenwriting obviously I'm it's all pros the movie plays in your head.

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_04]: It's not going to have actors interpreted and that sort of thing but it's also aching is telling these stories in first person and they're all documents and one of the thing with aching because he really is in three ways is losing his mind throughout this.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_04]: His document the documents themselves he's trying to protect himself with how he's writing writing the, especially in the third book which is a confession.

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_04]: He doesn't want that confession to get to the CIA and them to think he's selling him out he's thinking if this all goes wrong so that that book is embedded with codes.

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Most of my time was spent I don't know anything about, I don't do crossword puzzles. I'm glad in the airplane when there already have to look at the.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_04]: But he does he's he's obsessed with puzzles and codes.

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_04]: I spent so much time learning about codes and and symbolism and.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_04]: And and and how to do that because he writes these in there he has so many peculiarities of language.

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_04]: So that there would be a place if you read in the book you'll go, why did Beckner choose that word there's a weird and you look at up you go, oh that that's the word that does mean what it is but got to tell that much more easily well it's most likely because.

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_04]: I think that the word that's been written in the writing it and I had to do it and it was very difficult work has that word.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe it it starts with the can ends with the V well that means he's been writing no case or V's until that moment that they made in the alphabet there are so many so so that's.

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_04]: That's part of the thing as well he is aching is also there's a subtext to these books that he is writing a code the second book there's a crossword puzzle he keeps talking about.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_04]: The very first one all of the clues of that crossword puzzle are built into the object that he gets the object in there you can do that crossword puzzle if you figure out the map of the little of the thing.

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_04]: So it is I really wanted to get his voice down and getting his voice.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_04]: I had to create these things when he's nervous he'll write in Palin drugs I don't know if any whatsoever notice that but you know he goes on and on with those.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_04]: And that was just you know it's tired of writing interior exterior clump a dialogue get him across the set clump a dialogue and so that was kind of the joy of writing these books was also going kind of full meta with them and making aching be the voice of the book.

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_04]: It's much easier now with the new trilogy which is murr.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know very interesting which I don't have to do any of that crap he's very straightforward and his voice is it's much easier to write.

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that gets to a question I was going to ask you later which was on further plans for the broader spy game universe but I what did ask as well about the influence.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So murr is in his official or public role he's a philosophy professor at Princeton and I wonder if you'd be interested in talking a bit about that and a bit about the influences of philosophy on the series because it.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It's another one of those things that kind of permeates you're writing I mean murr's code name is permeatious the after the Greek legend of the man who stole fire from the gods and the interest in hearing your perspective on that aspect of vers personally.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, murr is a professor and and you don't get much of it you don't get that in the film except that he's when kind of professorial close the house to the elbow patches and he looks like a lot of my professors.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_04]: The yeah he his job when he's not running operations is is recruiting and any he teaches philosophy and mythology.

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_04]: Part of it is because that's what my other degree was in I got a masters in screen writing and an undergraduate degree in philosophy so I I'm fascinated by it.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_04]: I think when you're dealing in this gray world of of espionage and what their task to do and a lot of times.

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_04]: There are also you know, spies or aren't task to save the entire world they're task one piece of a larger puzzle and many times don't know what that is.

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_04]: I think from mirror having that more philosophical bent allows him to do what he has to do mirror to some horrible things I mean maybe they move policy very well, but he's the guy that has to do the bad shit.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_04]: And so he is dead his mind is dedicated to really the philosophy and the ethics behind these things and why we do what we do and what the meaning is.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Deception and reality and you know, you can go with I don't think we talk about it in the books but you know Plato's cave and we're seeing images projected behind us well isn't that metaphorical for sort of the spy game we're seeing shadows but we don't actually know what's casting the shadow.

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Behind us and it's mirrors job to turn around and find out what they're all casting that shadow so it seems that espionage and philosophy do pair up fairly nicely.

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Mythology as well because everything people behave in narrative forms from very earliest way the blind works and recognizing patterns to creating stories were were a species that's story base and so again.

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_04]: In espionage you're not trying to find the body and prove the murder so you don't got that to make it easier for you you're looking at something much more esoteric you're looking at intelligence trying to find someone else's intention.

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_04]: So what you're trying to do is piece together a story and mythologies are all the basic building blocks of storytelling so mirrors an expert in mythology because he needs to figure out.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_04]: What is the story that I'm jumping into the middle up when I steal this piece of information when we have this political crisis in cypress between what is the story that they're operating on why you have the.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Cypress and the Turks what what are they battling at it gets back to basic stories of their fundamental societies and so mirror.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Finds a deep resonance with philosophy and and mythology.

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_04]: A can do study and law and studying law a lot of good undergraduate law student study philosophy and so he got to it not because he sees himself as some kind of philosopher.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_04]: It's good for building logical argument studying philosophy study a lot of logic.

[00:34:27] [SPEAKER_04]: And that's where his thing and that's where he and your crossed earlier when he's pre-law student and had to take philosophy forces.

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and was recruited as showing a doctor's strange love which is one of my favorite films of that era so I enjoyed that detail.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh good yeah the I've collected a lot of very strange recruitment stories from people in the work with the CIA and some other things people get recruited in strange ways to do strange jobs.

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't till I was never recruited because I didn't sign anything but I did spend a lot of time working you know I realized looking back well dude if you're going back and forth the Langley and this is in the 90s once or twice a month to talk to people who want who are real interested in the Hollywood and movie thing.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_04]: They are that interested really they're interested in you doing something for it.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_04]: It took me a while to realize I thought I was really clever and I got my way in the door.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah Michael Begner didn't take the lock to the CIA they got me in there and and I met a lot of wonderful people have a lot of lifelong friends that have informed a lot of what I've written in my books.

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_04]: But it's it is the stories they tell in in Miriz Gambit the I am belish it a bit but really the story with the claustrophobia of Russell aching and that thing.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_04]: I got that from I got that and then one that was the same story but it had to do with the phobia of spiders that an officer had been put through.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_04]: They put them through the ringer with their own phobias and and I thought that was really really quite interesting made its way into the book.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah yeah thinking further along the philosophy mythology bit I was as we're talking about I'm thinking that.

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I think one of the things that's kind of drawn me to your work since spy game and it's true of this trilogy is books as well.

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think I think you capture very well the sense of the tragic in in the spy business in a way that I think a lot of the more pop culture presentations of.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_01]: The spy game as it were I don't really touch on I mean you have that.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_01]: You have that moment in a spy game where in Lebanon where the doctor goes into.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_01]: To treat the militia leader and little does anyone know up to make like Bishop that it's going to it's going to coincide.

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_01]: That doctor's visit is going to coincide with a Christian Lebanese militia deciding to simply blow up the doctor with a car bomb and there's an interesting there's interesting sense of the unintentional tragic in a lot of.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of what you portray that I think does reflect real life quite well, but it also kind of arcens back to those Greek tragedies and how how they would unfold.

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you know life is is about avoiding those unavoidable things and we never do I think in in the business there that these characters are in.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_04]: You're confronted with a larger tragedies every day there's also a part in in I think yours telling aching about unintended consequences something about what he he has to he gets a guy to kill himself.

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_04]: And and it's basically says to aching he says you know you just wouldn't be good at this because.

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_04]: You don't think to the thing of by doing that I may be screwing up a thousand other lives that are innocent that aren't even attached to this operation.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_04]: And in the field you got to be the guy that says I'm okay with that.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_04]: And so that's sort of the sense of it all.

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_04]: It all repercussions off everything has has caused an effect and I known a number of officers that couldn't deal with that and you know it's it's funny read for didn't want to do.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_04]: And so those were real marriages he threw in the thing at the very end. Oh, let's say they're cover wives a lot of people it's not cover wives they can't keep their relationships.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_04]: The alcoholism in it is I've met a lot of recovered alcoholics who and a lot of alcoholics who work in that business there is.

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_04]: And so you're dealing with tragic circumstances I remember an officer telling me.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_04]: That one thing that they really that really affected them was they were moving back to landly they were their tour was done and they're getting on and here where they were called they said don't get on that plane why we think that plane is going to have a terrorist event.

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, we're doing anything about it. No we're not and it didn't no one died the plane didn't blow up but she said she said you know the worst thing was is thinking I can't tell anyone.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_04]: I can't tell anyone and I'm not going to take the plane I'm not stupid yeah.

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_04]: And that's the kind of thing that you take home at night and that's the kind of thing that eats it you that's a kind of thing that why eight and couldn't you know he gets in the field a couple times and does that.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_04]: How does that mean you could end up paying up job but why he couldn't do it all the time. He's too sensitive and and a lot of a lot of spies portrayed in in really popular genre fiction they are provided on not being sensitive at all and they can deal with it.

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_04]: I wrote that in movies and a lot of rewrites for a lot of films where, you know,

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_04]: that's the hero of a guy and that's fun.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_04]: And we like that in our movies.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_04]: We like that kind of hero.

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_04]: But these heroes are more tapped into that sense of the tragic and God, you know,

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_04]: the mission today that's really the good mission.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Bishop deals with it the best because he doesn't dwell on it.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_04]: He assassinates against spikes by a game and, you know, it opens in that Vietnam scene.

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_04]: That assassination he does is the sniper sequence.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that ripples back over and over in the stories in the, in the mirrored trilogy,

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_04]: which I'm writing now and that goes to first book anyway.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_04]: That goes back to sort of the minute mirror leaves Langley at the end of Spie game

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_04]: and then covers the next 10 years.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_04]: I gave myself some space there.

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So kind of the space between the movie and Bishop's endgame.

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_04]: That's right.

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_04]: In that space and like these books do, they, they fall back to past events.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's, what was mere doing the rest of the time in Vietnam and in that period?

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Excellent.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_04]: And that goes back to the guy who, who I based the basic framework of mirron,

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_04]: that's what he was doing with the CIA in, in Lousen and that sort of thing.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_04]: And I'll touch on, on that in the book.

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_04]: But that event for Bishop in the Spie game, you know, ripples and what it was really about

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_04]: and what it really caused and, and what happened.

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_04]: And the books go into that in a can-in check and mirrors gambit and Bishop's endgame.

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Bishop lives with it because, you know what?

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_04]: The set of orders I got and what it was about at the time and what I was told,

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_04]: that's what I did and I can live with that.

[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, it was about something else.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_04]: It meant something.

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_04]: It's not my business, that's who I am.

[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_04]: And Bishop so Bishop is more of that and always remains more of that sort of James Mom character

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_04]: who's able to just do it, not worry about it.

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_04]: You know what if it was about something else?

[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_04]: No one told me, I'm not going to lose sleep.

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, you can compartmentalize much better than I can.

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_04]: So much better and that's why mirrored put him in the field because he need to be able to do this.

[00:42:19] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a great, there's a great quote in one of the books.

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't recall with exactly which one it is now but there's a great quote from

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_01]: he says, good intentions of what the more disasters in my life than I care to count.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's a, I think that's another aspect that's not always touched upon in the genre.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot is that something terrible happening does not actually have to be

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_01]: deliberate choice by some villain.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it's just people grouping in the dark trying to do their best and

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_01]: partly succeeding or sometimes failing utterly.

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and that's what I write to that that said it very well and because you know it's

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_04]: they were sitting me down once and they were they were talking about how they were accrued.

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if they were kind of pitching me but they basically said, you know we don't

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_04]: We only hire patriots and we're doing patriotic stuff. We hire the best of the best good people.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_04]: And that's why they always like my work it, Langley is because my characters, they're not bad guys.

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_04]: They just maybe makes bad choices and see things a little bit different than what the greater good might be

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_04]: or the greater good for us is not a greater good for someone else.

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_04]: And they don't and so it's not that. So you slip into the gray and you slip,

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_04]: they talked about the sliding scale of and I'm going to go into it and mirrors the end of

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_04]: we recruit white hats. These people we recruit are all wearing white hats. We make sure

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_04]: they're white hat it and we don't put them in places where they're going to be doing black

[00:44:08] [SPEAKER_04]: deeds. That's not what what we do but what happens is as you get better at it, you get more

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_04]: challenge challenging assignments and operations, you step into the gray and you have to know

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_04]: that when you go home you put the white hat back on. But occasionally people go into the gray

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_04]: and then that gray becomes white and then so the middle that was gray has moved

[00:44:30] [SPEAKER_04]: slid right down into so a bit of black and that's now the middle ground and you have to watch

[00:44:36] [SPEAKER_04]: yourself to never let that sliding scale be all black but you're looking at, you know,

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_04]: you're in is black but you're calling it white and that's how people get corrupted in it

[00:44:47] [SPEAKER_04]: and go astray and do bad things but no one's intended to take away. There's no doctor

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_04]: evils, you know it's just people their intentions are maybe there's a little more greed than

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_04]: they want to admit there's more and it's again it's then the moral and the philosophical

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_04]: that you have to wrestle with at all levels. As I think most of us know from our day-to-day

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_01]: lives it's always easy to find someone you can point to and say well I'm not as bad as that person.

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Exactly, isn't that isn't that the truth and so it's a nice canvas to paint on

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_04]: in the world of espionage because there's so much latitude to find moments like that.

[00:45:28] [SPEAKER_04]: You know the guys at harquer and the characters on the seventh floor, you know they're not the

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_04]: you know I catch them on the day they're acting like idiots but they wouldn't have that job if they

[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_04]: weren't qualified for the job and and but people sometimes make mistakes in act like idiots

[00:45:45] [SPEAKER_04]: and and so I try and have sympathy for all the characters as well even the characters that

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_04]: are truly villains in the story and the stories. You gotta give them some sympathy because they're

[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_04]: no one sets out to be an arch villain. I you know in the day I guess some people do but

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_04]: that's you know then the yacht you got 10 stories and you know if you want to keep writing

[00:46:10] [SPEAKER_04]: stories you gotta find the person that didn't set out to be the arch villain and the person that

[00:46:14] [SPEAKER_04]: didn't set out that that's comfortable with not saving the world every time they go to work.

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_01]: You're just saving a little bit of it. Yeah for sure. I was very interested as I was thinking

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_01]: back I rewatched by game after finishing my scan but and I was interested thinking about it

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_01]: in the context of these books because you have your scan or you have spot the film spy game

[00:46:39] [SPEAKER_01]: comes out in tail end of 2001. Another big espionage film that came out just I think a little

[00:46:49] [SPEAKER_01]: slightly less than a year's year later was that adaptation of the born identity. And it was

[00:46:55] [SPEAKER_01]: interesting as I thought about it. I've actually rewatched that film with my wife not too many

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_01]: months ago and as I was thinking about it I was struck by the fact that both of those stories at

[00:47:08] [SPEAKER_01]: their core are Vietnam war stories but when the born identity was brought to film that was all stripped

[00:47:17] [SPEAKER_01]: away it was modernized it was brought into the present day as it were which was not at all what

[00:47:23] [SPEAKER_01]: it was spy game and I'm kind of curious because there's a lot of emphasis in our genre on kind of writing

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_01]: written from the headlines stories that are kind of what's coming next as it were and you've

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_01]: done you've done a fair bit of that as well we can talk about your work with the agency

[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_01]: with that TV series but with the film spy game and then with this trilogy of books that surrounds it

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_01]: you're writing more period pieces and I'd be interested if you share your thoughts on kind of

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_01]: the differences between writing those two styles as to a purchase to this genre.

[00:48:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah the spy game wasn't intended as a period piece because it took let's see how many years

[00:48:13] [SPEAKER_04]: five years to to five or six years to get made when I'd originally done it

[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_04]: the intention was Paul Newman and Robert Redford and the which would have been great what have been

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_04]: fabulous and Paul Newman got Robert Redford and then back to upset I'm not doing this just

[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm too way too old for this and so any said I'd rather see Bob do the mural role than the bishop

[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_04]: if it had happened that way the books wouldn't work at all so I'm perfectly happy that it didn't

[00:48:49] [SPEAKER_04]: what Tony did was he said because the studio universal who was distributed they weren't involved in

[00:48:56] [SPEAKER_04]: the development until the very end they became the distributor with beacon and they had their say on a

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_04]: number of things and they were really wanted it okay let's move it out of Vietnam and update it

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_04]: and Tony Scott said now the script is this way and I get this and I'm doing back to the script

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_04]: and so it stayed that way the agency I wrote a lot of contemporary stuff and and

[00:49:24] [SPEAKER_04]: even back to sniper you know try start pictures held it up because they said we don't have

[00:49:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Marines in Panama lately we don't have what's going on here I said give it eight months and we're

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_04]: gonna be proud of what are you talking about I've always been real good at looking at the trends

[00:49:41] [SPEAKER_04]: I didn't want to do that because then too much of your time is spent on the politics of

[00:49:46] [SPEAKER_04]: a situation and and I'm trying to ride that crest of the wave and I'm more comfortable doing

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_04]: that in television and film where there's an immediacy to it and in writing a book I really would

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_04]: rather it sit in a world where we kind of know where the world went we kind of know the events

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_04]: I like to dig out secrets of past events we don't know and and put those in my in my books

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_01]: because it's fairly fascinating and bishops in game but I don't want to spoil that story for readers but

[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_04]: yeah yeah it uh so weird things came together with that that was that was very odd

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_04]: that's why I put the acknowledgments at front because it was such an odd thing that came together

[00:50:27] [SPEAKER_04]: that made that story coalesced and then then tying the time period and that takes place in

[00:50:33] [SPEAKER_04]: May of 2001 that did work out and but again it doesn't really go about what happens in September

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_04]: it doesn't really go there um it just has that as a backdrop I I want to avoid

[00:50:47] [SPEAKER_04]: the where was I that day you know that that happened kind of stuff and I want to really talk you know

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_04]: look at characters dealing with something that we have some contexts too we have some context

[00:50:59] [SPEAKER_04]: and see how did these people deal with that and the moral questions they were confronted with

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_04]: and the ethical questions and you know life in that thing so that's why I kind of with the books

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_04]: you know I give nice slices of mirrors gamut has a lot of cold war stuff I think people

[00:51:19] [SPEAKER_04]: get to go wow I didn't really know that was happening then and and and does that but you know

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_04]: it's more to let the characters breathe and and get to know these people and you know

[00:51:31] [SPEAKER_04]: for aching and mirror you know they're their own

[00:51:36] [SPEAKER_04]: interpersonal relationships with with their wives are you know I think much more dramatic than

[00:51:42] [SPEAKER_04]: than saving the world and stuff and I think that my readers I'm writing to people that really

[00:51:48] [SPEAKER_04]: want to reflect about you know we all have interpersonal relationships and and maybe get some

[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_04]: back and forth metaphorically with my books on how we deal with the interpersonal relationships

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_01]: and that sort of thing I'm interested in that yeah it's always very fascinating how you handle

[00:52:04] [SPEAKER_01]: all that in business and game it's probably my favorite book of the series though I enjoyed them all

[00:52:09] [SPEAKER_01]: but that one was that one was particularly striking as you think of the time in which it's set and

[00:52:15] [SPEAKER_01]: all everything else that was going on plus all the history that you woven to it it was quite good

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_04]: it's in is in is the good pivot point in the series um because I've set up a set of rules of

[00:52:29] [SPEAKER_04]: how the books are going to be with mirrors mirrors gambit and so much of that I mean that's an

[00:52:34] [SPEAKER_04]: debriefing in a sense so there's not any present the action really there's a murder investigation

[00:52:40] [SPEAKER_04]: or a couple murder investigations uh for present action but that's the debriefing then you get

[00:52:45] [SPEAKER_04]: you get the spy story with bishops and game but you get it through my storytelling lens and I'm

[00:52:51] [SPEAKER_04]: able to do what I want to do while giving readers that you know the spy story the bishops

[00:52:58] [SPEAKER_04]: spy story that that people love and and I love those as well that's the one that would make

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_04]: the best movie I imagine um and then with they can in check um I've earned the right to go really

[00:53:10] [SPEAKER_04]: a little bit more deeper into what I really like and physics and philosophy and um and deep character

[00:53:19] [SPEAKER_04]: and and the absurdism I find a lot of what I dealt with in my intersection with espionage there's

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_01]: a strange absurdity to it yeah that's that's another thing I wanted to touch on I noticed recently

[00:53:33] [SPEAKER_01]: that akenin check was was ranking quite highly on the the rankings of amazon of for absurdist

[00:53:41] [SPEAKER_01]: fiction and I was struck that you had categorized it that way and yet I think it makes sense because

[00:53:47] [SPEAKER_01]: there is a there is an absurdity to this business that you capture well yeah well you know what's

[00:53:53] [SPEAKER_04]: kind of funny is it choosing those rankings um it was that was the third or fit that I think

[00:54:00] [SPEAKER_04]: there was 10 and that was way down the list I tried to sell that book as straight as the

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_04]: anage international mystery all those things but I guess however amazon works they found that and

[00:54:11] [SPEAKER_04]: did down the you know lay down on the thing put absurdism because it is somewhat it's more

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_04]: a cart vinyl get book then I think a locarei type book or a inflaming it's it's more that yeah that's

[00:54:24] [SPEAKER_04]: an interesting comparison I can see that that's just how they out of the algorithm there has

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_04]: worked out but now I look at it and it's like well why can't it be ranked in espionage at all it's

[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_04]: kind of it's movie tie and I get that they rank you know these are based on a movie and movie characters

[00:54:42] [SPEAKER_04]: that that works but then it's two categories of absurdism which I think is well it's absurd

[00:54:47] [SPEAKER_04]: I think it should be considered an espionage book but yeah for sure but it's selling well I'm very

[00:54:52] [SPEAKER_04]: happy with that book that that book is really took the most effort and took the most thought

[00:54:57] [SPEAKER_04]: and has the most thought in it but again it is the third book of a trilogy if you haven't read

[00:55:03] [SPEAKER_04]: the first two you I think it's probably not not something to just pick up and read it's pretty

[00:55:07] [SPEAKER_01]: wavy for sure yeah thank you back to we've touched on your we touched on your involvement with

[00:55:15] [SPEAKER_01]: your show the agency and thinking of bishops in game in the historical period it's set in I was

[00:55:21] [SPEAKER_01]: highly entertained that that TV show actually comes up in the book and I two two things about that

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_01]: first of all wonder if you'd share some of your thoughts on working it we've been at into the

[00:55:35] [SPEAKER_01]: story but I'm also very curious whether Michael Beckner might actually show up in the pages

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_01]: of bishops in game perhaps with names what names change protect the guilty yeah yeah well

[00:55:49] [SPEAKER_04]: it was so outlandish I tell you pitching that show that scene in bishops endgame and it annoyed

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_04]: me so much I had to put it in the book to have the president of drama at cbs say you got this name

[00:56:10] [SPEAKER_04]: been been ladden and she kept her feet ladden and you get what I'm doing I'm going no she goes

[00:56:17] [SPEAKER_04]: it sounds like a ladden it's very silly I'm like well that's a real name that's a real guy

[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_04]: and then she said that and she didn't listen to me and then she went on and her little assistant was

[00:56:30] [SPEAKER_04]: like the little kangaroo and horned hears a who you know popping up and she goes and what's this

[00:56:34] [SPEAKER_04]: alquihada alquiaida alquiaida this is ridiculous you got an event new fence and I said well these are real

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_04]: and the president said to me if they were real if this was a real person in alqueda was real

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_04]: we would know about it because we have a news division down the hall and I thought I'm going to call

[00:56:53] [SPEAKER_04]: you guys out at one point because this is the most idiotic thing ever and so so when you see at the

[00:57:01] [SPEAKER_04]: end of that book and achon you know he has hypergrephia and esfisa and so he's putting a lot of

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_04]: diagraines and stuff in bishops endgame which is is symptomatic of someone suffering from that they add

[00:57:15] [SPEAKER_04]: drawings to their writing and so but that invitation for the agency premiere is the invitation

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_04]: I have it framed on my wall right here I'm looking at it and so there we we could have our premiere

[00:57:29] [SPEAKER_04]: at cia headquarters in the dome and and you know I framed it because it says plier please RSVP

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_04]: by September 11 2001 and obviously we didn't have the premiere there because that came around

[00:57:46] [SPEAKER_04]: and point maybe there I was a little bit too much on me and needed to be on something else you don't

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_04]: but it is quite ironic in a very sad and awful way because they got busy after that day

[00:57:59] [SPEAKER_04]: yeah so it made its way into the book because I was annoyed and yeah that's just the way

[00:58:04] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah it was it was a great scene it was one of those scenes where you read and it's like

[00:58:08] [SPEAKER_01]: this is almost true absurd not to be true yeah yeah that's a three years of Hollywood it's

[00:58:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I hate to absolutely absurdity that it's working there yeah yeah yeah one other thing I was

[00:58:24] [SPEAKER_01]: really interested by I think I think for people who enjoyed spy game one of the big moments that we all

[00:58:33] [SPEAKER_01]: kind of remember from it is the rooftop scene where bishop tears in the mirror about you can't

[00:58:38] [SPEAKER_01]: trade these people like their deck of cards and mirror basically tells them he's he's completely wrong

[00:58:44] [SPEAKER_01]: it's a fantastic scene between those two actors what I found kind of interesting was then

[00:58:51] [SPEAKER_01]: in the trilogy there's a great scene between Nathan Mer and the silice Kingston who's the

[00:58:58] [SPEAKER_01]: leader as you put it which is a great turn of phrase he's the lead he's the head of the CIA's

[00:59:04] [SPEAKER_01]: counter-intel jannisaries I love that expression but there's a scene between the two of them where

[00:59:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Harkens back to that moment from spy game and he basically tells Kingston bishop was right

[00:59:21] [SPEAKER_01]: as interested if you could if you could talk a little bit about that that change in

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Mer's perspective and how he comes to see how he comes to see that's very differently

[00:59:31] [SPEAKER_04]: I think it's with I don't want to give any spoilers away but for sure that so that scene happens

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_04]: in a can and check what I do with each book is each book goes back to that day at the CIA

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_04]: where bishop is captured in china and what leads up to that what's really going on there it makes it

[00:59:50] [SPEAKER_04]: I did that because it's fun it's fun to I think it's fun after you finish each book go oh

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_04]: shoot that well that's what was going on when they were talking about that or that's who that guy

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_04]: in that scene was and you get to see a totally different it's a kaleidoscope it's good to exactly

[01:00:05] [SPEAKER_04]: then the movie changes again yeah and yeah and you know it's nice I can sell

[01:00:11] [SPEAKER_04]: repeat viewers of spy game and get my residual off every time but

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_04]: so that happens right after silice Kingston is one of those guys

[01:00:21] [SPEAKER_04]: in in the credits because they didn't they changed it up they call in the credits it's

[01:00:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Dr. Bire's or something that wasn't in the script it was silice Kingston but

[01:00:32] [SPEAKER_04]: they made it something else because they didn't follow that storyline you know he there were

[01:00:36] [SPEAKER_01]: a few more lines in the script that just didn't make it I think it can first name is Robert and the

[01:00:41] [SPEAKER_01]: credits or something like that yeah that wasn't what it was I don't know why that changed that

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_04]: I have no idea that they didn't like Ross someone didn't like the word with the name Russell

[01:00:50] [SPEAKER_04]: they took away his he had in the script he did he had maybe five maybe had one half seen with mure

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_04]: they made you understand that they worked together I get taken it out of the movie there were no

[01:01:02] [SPEAKER_04]: the book wasn't published so you got rid of it but with with Kingston mure has to go through that

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_04]: day and has to make the decision to save Bishop and in the it wouldn't work in the movie because

[01:01:18] [SPEAKER_04]: we don't have any of the threads because it was a longer story they left out of them the only

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_04]: thing I wanted them to put in and that Tony said we just don't have the time is there's a confrontation

[01:01:30] [SPEAKER_04]: from before Bishop's captured between Bishop and mure over that burn flag we've seen

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_04]: we've seen in his office in the film where Bishop tells him if I find out that you were behind

[01:01:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Catherine being kidnapped I'm going to kill you and mure knows I've trained this guy so well he will

[01:01:49] [SPEAKER_04]: he'll do it he won't think twice about it and so that so that when we watch the film

[01:01:56] [SPEAKER_04]: that is what the red for character is actually dealing with if I go through with this

[01:02:02] [SPEAKER_04]: there's a good chance I'm a dead man and I think that would have had so later when he is dealing

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_04]: with silice Kingston in the third book he is dealing with that resonated with him as well and he's

[01:02:15] [SPEAKER_04]: having to realize I did this to this guy I did all of this to Bishop and you know what he was right

[01:02:21] [SPEAKER_04]: you know in a human to human level he's totally right I'm moving policy forward I'm moving my

[01:02:27] [SPEAKER_04]: operations forward but I am using him as a trading card more than you know I used him as a card

[01:02:34] [SPEAKER_04]: it's not that we used you know the German as the trade playing card yeah I made you do that but

[01:02:39] [SPEAKER_04]: I've used you and so he has to admit to Kingston you know what that he's right I'm on and I can live with it

[01:02:44] [SPEAKER_04]: now I'm leaving the sea I can live with this yeah yeah I do find it very I found it very fast

[01:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: making watching the film after reading Merz Gambit and further looking back on watching the film

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_01]: after reading the success of two books of the series they definitely completely transform how you view

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_01]: what happens in those in those scenes it's quite fascinating yeah that that that was fun it

[01:03:12] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't think in the new trilogy I'll be able to pivot off that that event that much because I've

[01:03:19] [SPEAKER_04]: sort of everything I need to say but I have new events but I'm moving a little bit off the film

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_01]: obviously yeah so yeah tell us a bit about your plans for for this new trilogy of books I'm

[01:03:30] [SPEAKER_04]: very fascinated to see where you'll go with this well what I found what I found most interesting

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER_04]: is so this trilogy is three mere books and so it's gonna be first person is the aching books

[01:03:43] [SPEAKER_04]: and it's mere it did take me a while to get into it because I realized that as we all do we

[01:03:50] [SPEAKER_04]: we have our outer persona in the way we speak in the way we display our lives and I realized

[01:03:59] [SPEAKER_04]: and I tried to write mere the way he is and behaves with people his narration I was that's not

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_04]: really him he's sort of like me and probably everyone else there's an internal thing going on

[01:04:08] [SPEAKER_04]: it's not we don't share that and so that so we're getting a much more internal picture of mere

[01:04:16] [SPEAKER_04]: you think you know mere because hey he did that whole book mere's gamut and confessed everything

[01:04:21] [SPEAKER_04]: to ache and I got in nail that get a normal and he's a much more complicated person and

[01:04:29] [SPEAKER_04]: and then the and he's dealing with he's devoted his life this is before he gets to

[01:04:36] [SPEAKER_04]: doing recruitment and working as you know is in the new attempt that we see him at bishops

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_04]: end game this is this is he's he's on the run and by the way he really screwed things up for the

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_04]: CIA and the U.S. government so he's not anyone's favorite person so he's got that to deal with so it

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_04]: is much more there's a lot more genre element in that part of it but he's also reflecting back

[01:05:01] [SPEAKER_04]: to before he met or recruited bishop in Vietnam and dealing with that the guy who

[01:05:09] [SPEAKER_04]: formed that part of mirror in real life worked on something called operation pop-eye

[01:05:15] [SPEAKER_04]: which was cloud seating in Vietnam over the Ho Chi Minh Trail and we have the clever idea

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_04]: we'll just drown their food supply out and and so that is the the shell operation that he's operating

[01:05:32] [SPEAKER_04]: under so it's very early it's early 65 I guess 65 to 68 in Vietnam in Louss mostly it goes

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Vietnam Louss in Cambodia the third book will get to the after the war and the killing fields in Cambodia

[01:05:49] [SPEAKER_04]: at the same time dealing with really a much more of a sort of L.A. no Irish

[01:05:56] [SPEAKER_04]: but set in the 90s with mirror dealing with sort of the repercussions of what he's just done

[01:06:02] [SPEAKER_04]: in the film so it would be in that sense that part of the book is basically would be the sequel

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_04]: to spy game if we follow mirror in that car out of the sea I this is like that so that's kind of

[01:06:19] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm taking the kaleidoscope operation that really comes out in a can and check and

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_04]: silice Kingston and writing a set of serial books short novellas I'm going to do six over the next

[01:06:34] [SPEAKER_04]: maybe nine months and release those that follow Ling Ling Kingston silice Kingston and that family

[01:06:42] [SPEAKER_04]: and they're basically serials kind of like what Stephen King did what 20 30 years ago

[01:06:48] [SPEAKER_04]: with the green mile where just these short books I'm going to release that follow that and that

[01:06:53] [SPEAKER_04]: I would describe that as sort of the soprano set in the CIA if you would it's that family

[01:06:59] [SPEAKER_04]: but but a saga a family song and that that that's fun to write because it's not as difficult

[01:07:06] [SPEAKER_04]: as the mirror book which has it's taken a lot of fun yeah so I have to ask if there's a

[01:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: trilogy from a cons perspective and a trilogy from hers perspective will there be a trilogy from

[01:07:16] [SPEAKER_04]: visual perspective a grand and I lived that long that would be wonderful I'm I think it's a lot of work

[01:07:23] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't have much more to do I have a lot of kids coven most of my kids who grow not but coven

[01:07:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Ronis a surprise so I'm still doing the daddy stuff I'm still at the whole life I'm 60 now and

[01:07:39] [SPEAKER_04]: I seem to always have a little kid in the house that distracts from writing otherwise yes they're

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_04]: will I think he is he's the hardest character he's going to be the hardest character to get under

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_04]: this camera because it it it it's just not going to be fair to people that read my books to just do

[01:07:59] [SPEAKER_04]: an action book which is very easy to do with this that's that would be the kind of thing I do

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_04]: when when I write movies I'm about writing books to do what I did there so it's going to

[01:08:08] [SPEAKER_04]: be figuring out what exactly do I want to say about the human condition through a guy like Bishop

[01:08:13] [SPEAKER_04]: and and that would probably take place in that period of time between swigame the film and

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Bishop's endgame and then afterwards later on yeah I can definitely I know it's there it's

[01:08:30] [SPEAKER_04]: you know what happened is the miratrylogy even though I think it won't I know when I get to the end

[01:08:36] [SPEAKER_04]: it'll inform that book so I got I got I got to write those to know what I'm writing next

[01:08:42] [SPEAKER_01]: for sure yeah I am interested thinking of of the gap between when you first conceived this by game

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_01]: when you first conceived a miratryl game and then the film and then now all these years later actually

[01:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: bringing the trilogy to its conclusion how difficult was it for you to kind of go back and

[01:09:04] [SPEAKER_01]: build from that foundation all these years after you had asked you to written written the

[01:09:09] [SPEAKER_04]: start of it well the Bishop's endgame that I kept putting notes when I was working on my series

[01:09:19] [SPEAKER_04]: the agency and then I spent probably the best working relationship of my life although we didn't

[01:09:25] [SPEAKER_04]: make any films I worked on some of his but I worked with Sydney Pollock and I worked a long time

[01:09:30] [SPEAKER_04]: with him doing writing work for him and we developed an idea that was similar to Bishop's endgame

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_04]: he was a big fan of spiking he wanted to he wanted to make his spiking which would be the next

[01:09:46] [SPEAKER_04]: film and we never did so I had a lot of notes from that so Bishop's endgame I was able to do through

[01:09:56] [SPEAKER_04]: just a lot of stories and notes I collected I meet and worked with so many CIA officers

[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_04]: that would give me 10 bits of things they all went the door so that worked out taken and check

[01:10:07] [SPEAKER_04]: I was then left on my own and I did have one the mirror my mirror inspiration didn't have anything

[01:10:19] [SPEAKER_04]: but I had a couple people that knew a lot about S.B. and I was able to draw from them

[01:10:31] [SPEAKER_04]: and make that go that way and I worked a lot with them and was very close friends with Tony

[01:10:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Mendez and John and Mendez we would spend some holidays every fourth of July we'd spend together

[01:10:43] [SPEAKER_04]: and he taught me quite a bit I worked with him for a while and so I always wanted to do an OTS book

[01:10:52] [SPEAKER_04]: and so that's why although the first book I dedicated to the third book really got into some

[01:10:58] [SPEAKER_04]: of the people that I'd meet through that social circle of their friends that they work with

[01:11:05] [SPEAKER_04]: who I'd end up meeting with in social ways and a lot of times I mean socially with you know

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_04]: in a kind of secure place where everyone's sort of in the know you get you get a lot of

[01:11:17] [SPEAKER_04]: information there's freedom a little bit more freedom to speak rather than you know Mendez so

[01:11:26] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah yeah fascinating is there anything we haven't covered that you'd like to discuss

[01:11:30] [SPEAKER_04]: yeah I think we really got a good thing it's nice to talk about it you know it was preparing for this

[01:11:37] [SPEAKER_04]: I never really thought about any of these questions I just write I do what I've always done

[01:11:42] [SPEAKER_04]: so it was very nice to really organize my thoughts on what what the heck am I trying to do

[01:11:48] [SPEAKER_04]: and and that's where I got you know to to realizing um yeah that's why I could

[01:11:55] [SPEAKER_04]: and check ends up in the absurd absurdist fiction column and not you know suspense espionage it's

[01:12:02] [SPEAKER_04]: it is I write a different beast I write from the point of view and people that want to

[01:12:09] [SPEAKER_04]: I've had a lot of access and I don't have any security clerks people have asked me how were

[01:12:13] [SPEAKER_04]: you able to get this past the review board I didn't sign the paper they asked me too but they

[01:12:22] [SPEAKER_04]: said you would have to then you couldn't take another salary from Hollywood you would be paying

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER_04]: your salary and I'm like no I got six kids I I got to get my Hollywood so and I have two divorces

[01:12:33] [SPEAKER_04]: I need to make the Hollywood money not the the government's the government's the government's the

[01:12:39] [SPEAKER_04]: well I'm happy to help but I need to be upon it too but and so so really that that is that's

[01:12:46] [SPEAKER_04]: my perspective and I've been very blessed to work with a lot of real heroic american

[01:12:50] [SPEAKER_04]: patriots and people from other countries around the world yeah yeah well you've created you've

[01:12:56] [SPEAKER_01]: created a fascinating trilogy and one that really really reframes not only successive book

[01:13:03] [SPEAKER_01]: frames the previous one but they really reframes what's the classic of the genre in spy games so

[01:13:11] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah I was I was thrilled to dig into it and enjoyed every minute I spent in the world

[01:13:16] [SPEAKER_01]: okay can't wait to see what what comes when we finally get inside the head of Nathan Mer.

[01:13:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah well I'm feeling the same way as you there there's some places I mean he's popped up

[01:13:27] [SPEAKER_04]: and he said you use a thinking mat my goodness that takes me in a different direction

[01:13:30] [SPEAKER_04]: that's the joy of writing as you would know as an author sometimes yes take you places you didn't

[01:13:35] [SPEAKER_01]: expect and you're better off for it. It isn't that the truth yeah well it's one one last

[01:13:41] [SPEAKER_01]: question before we go then where can people go to learn more about you and your work? I have my website

[01:13:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Michael Frostbeckner.com and all my books are there and I think I put stuff up about what I'm

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_04]: also working on other things I'm working on. There's a nice pile there that covers my Hollywood

[01:14:01] [SPEAKER_04]: career so I have that I have Michael Frostbeckner on Instagram and on Facebook. I like to

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_04]: I like I didn't use Facebook for years until I started doing this and it's quite I mean you

[01:14:16] [SPEAKER_04]: I've had a lot of friendships and a lot of interesting people so yeah if you if you search my name

[01:14:23] [SPEAKER_04]: I all my different social media and that sort of thing. I independently published and that was a

[01:14:30] [SPEAKER_04]: choice I made the I have a good literary agent but the publishers really like Hollywood really

[01:14:39] [SPEAKER_04]: want to meet right different kinds of books more like my movies more like in some of my other other

[01:14:44] [SPEAKER_04]: stuff and and that I didn't want to do so so you're going to find me most easily on Barnesin

[01:14:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Mobile.com Amazon obviously and the other thing but that's where I'm doing it and I'm enjoying it

[01:14:59] [SPEAKER_04]: oh and the last thing I needed to say is we just finished our writers strike and I have

[01:15:08] [SPEAKER_04]: beacon pictures who did the original spy game they share rights with me on the film

[01:15:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Universal discovered that they don't have the rights they they have the right to shoot the

[01:15:21] [SPEAKER_04]: script just shoot that script again that's the only right they have they thought they had more

[01:15:26] [SPEAKER_04]: rights they don't be because I share them and we do have interest in the television series

[01:15:34] [SPEAKER_04]: streaming series and in more than interest because I just turned in the the pilot script from

[01:15:42] [SPEAKER_04]: so Universal is shopping that now clandestinely to the platforms to see who'd like to take that

[01:15:50] [SPEAKER_04]: they universal realize we can't give up we're not going to give away spy game even though we don't

[01:15:55] [SPEAKER_04]: want it we certainly don't want back there and beacon pictures to run away with it so we

[01:15:59] [SPEAKER_04]: turn out we we've partnered with them and you'll see I'm you know beacon and and I have a

[01:16:06] [SPEAKER_04]: good relationship and and and that series is coming together so excellent we will see if

[01:16:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Universal can get it done well all look forward to potentially seeing these books brought to the

[01:16:16] [SPEAKER_01]: small screen then yeah well this is this has been a pleasure and honor Michael thanks for coming

[01:16:22] [SPEAKER_01]: on board the secrets and spies to talk about your work thank you so much for having me this was

[01:16:27] [SPEAKER_03]: really quite enjoyable thank you thanks for listening this is secrets and spies