Paul Vidich's "The Poet’s Game"

Paul Vidich's seventh and newest novel is The Poet's Game. His previous novel, Beirut Station: Two Lives of a Spy, was selected by CrimeReads as one of the best espionage novels of 2023. Vidich's debut novel, An Honorable Man, was selected by Publishers Weekly as a Top 10 Mystery and Thriller in 2016. It was followed by The Good Assassin. His third novel, The Coldest Warrior, was widely praised in England and America, earning strong reviews from The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times. It was shortlisted for the UK’s Staunch Prize and chosen as a Notable Selection of 2020 by CrimeReads.

Here Vidich dreamcasts an adaptation of The Poet's Game:

The English director, John Madden, would be a good fit to make The Poet’s Game a movie. Madden directed Operation Mincemeat and much earlier in his career, he director the multiple- Oscar winner, Shakespeare in Love with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard. Both movies had ensembles casts and the story lines blended personal lives into an historical moment. The Poet’s Game shares those qualities: the tense political conflict between Moscow and Washington in 2018 provides the backdrop for a love story. Madden has the light touch of a director who can bring people’s stories alive and still sustain the suspense of a thrilling plot.

My main character, Alex Matthews, could be played by the chameleon-like Damian Lewis, whose remarkable range makes him a good candidate for the role. Lewis is a smart actor and has the right amount of devious sophistication to play a spy moving two steps ahead of surveillance. Against Lewis, I would cast Natalie Portman in the role of Anna, the young Ukrainian-American translator married to Matthews. Portman can move between being loving and vulnerable and cold and determined, the opposing emotional qualities that make up Anna’s personality.

The script could be written by Tom Stoppard, but if he’s not available, I would nominate Stephen Schiff, a friend, who wrote and served as executive producer on the hit TV series The Americans. Schiff understands how to pull off an actor’s seeming and being with artful dialogue.

Visit Paul Vidich's website.

Q&A with Paul Vidich.

My Book, The Movie: The Mercenary.

The Page 69 Test: The Mercenary.

Writers Read: Paul Vidich (January 2022).

The Page 69 Test: The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin.

Writers Read: Paul Vidich (October 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Beirut Station.

The Page 69 Test: Beirut Station.

Writers Read: Paul Vidich.

--Marshal Zeringue