IP Picks🔎: Proud Boys, Magicians and a Zodiac Killer Hunt
➕ An Asian American 'Pride and Prejudice' and a Hitchcock-approved classic spy thriller
Welcome to The Optionist! As always, thanks for reading. The Frankfurt Book Fair takes place in a couple of weeks — October 19 to 23 — and it will be the first time it will be in person since the pandemic, another sign that the world is trying to return to normal.
Book fairs are an anachronism from a time when the world wasn’t connected by instant communications; an important event that brought the publishing community together. The Frankfurt fair, which in one form or another has been going on for 500 years, is the world’s largest. It started as a place where publishers and others could gather to buy and sell international rights and so played an important role in the dissemination of knowledge around the world and reinforcing the global system of copyright and author rights. Of course now, it draws people in tech and film, even as communications connect the world in ways that make big trade gatherings like this less necessary.
How big is it? Try 7,000 exhibitors, 300,000+ books on offer, 200,000 attendees and 10,000 journalists covering it. Hot foreign rights sales and good buzz can jumpstart dealmaking for a film/TV adaptation. A couple of titles in today’s newsletter are being touted as hot books at Frankfurt and we’ll be featuring more in the next couple of weeks leading up to the festival. Plus, we’re keeping an eye out for any titles that unexpectedly pop at the fair.
Let’s get right to this week’s picks. My lead pick is also one that is going to get attention at Frankfurt. It’s an important book that helps us understand how January 6th happened and the ongoing dangers of far-right extremism. We’ve also got:
A fun Asian-American spin on Pride and Prejudice.
A historical fantasy that mixes magic with the real history of 1800s Europe.
A classic spy novel with a timely story that resonates today
A new theory on the Zodiac Killer’s real identity
JOURNALISM
TRUE CRIME
For fans of Zodiac, Serial and Mindhunter
Potential logline: An oddball novelist/amateur detective thinks he’s solved the Zodiac Killer case and confronts the alleged suspect’s daughter with information that her late father was a serial killer.
“Has The Zodiac Killer Mystery Been Solved (Again)?” By Aaron Gell (Los Angeles Magazine, Oct.) For as long as the Zodiac Killer case remains unsolved, I think there will be interest in another take on it. In Gell’s story, novelist-turned-amateur detective Jarrett Kobek fixates on the Zodiac Killer’s use of obscure literary references to posit a new suspect: Paul Doerr, a WWII vet whose interests ranged from sci-fi to Renaissance Faire cosplay to survivalism. The great drama in this story and the hook for an adaptation is the meeting between Kobek and Doerr’s sixtysomething daughter, Gloria, which could either serve as the framing device for an adaptation or the denouement to the story (or both). You have lots of skeptics of Kobek’s theory; to me, the key isn’t the end but the journey itself (think about the listener’s vacillation between beliefs about guilt and innocence with Adnan Syad in Serial). Kobek is just a really interesting, oddball guy and the hunt itself is compelling. This could be a doc or something unscripted, but I also think there’s a scripted version that tells the story through Kobek and Gloria (maybe using Gell as an audience POV) and flashbacks to Doerr and Gloria during her childhood. REPS: Ping me and I’ll connect you to the author’s team.
BOOKS I LIKE (current)
CURRENT EVENTS
For fans of Sons of Anarchy, BlacKkKlansman and American History X
Potential logline: The inside story of the right-wing gang at the center of the January 6th riots and its charismatic, dangerous founder.
We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism by Andy B. Campbell (Hachette Books, Sept. 20) In the wake of Charlottesville and January 6th, the Proud Boys have gotten a lot of attention, but I don’t think people know much about its origins or founder Gavin McInnes, the Scotland-born Canadian expat (pictured above at a Berkeley rally with other Proud Boys) who founded Vice and then mobilized his podcast — think a proto Joe Rogan show — audience into the dangerous paramilitary organization we know as the Proud Boys. The book is full of fascinating details about the group, from the inside joke that spawned the Proud Boys name to the planning behind its most violent protests. There’s a compelling dramatization to be made here and McIness makes a fascinating (if grotesque) anti-hero. It strikes me that one way to do this without overly valorizing McInness is to center the narrative on the activists who have been working to counter the Proud Boys and are also featured in the book. Give the audience both a character to root for and POV through which to see McInnes for who he is. This is a timely story and also a great drama that would make viewers uncomfortable, but also unable to turn away. REPS: Gotham
ROMANCE/DRAMA/DIVERSE
For fans of Crazy Rich Asians and Pride and Prejudice
Potential logline: A young Chinese-American woman finds her family and romances complicated by her anti-gentrification activism in early 2000s New York City’s Chinatown.
Good Fortune by C.K. Chau (HarperVia, Summer 2023) Fun. Good Fortune reworks Pride and Prejudice in a modern setting a la Bridget Jones’ Diary. Here the setting is early 2000s Chinatown where a young woman’s activism against the gentrification of her neighborhood complicate her family relations romantic prospects as she finds her passion for saving her neighborhood isn’t shared by the guy who’s perfect on paper and the guy she blows off just might be her best ally – and the right romantic match. Add to that a family whose expectations for their daughter most assuredly wasn’t “community activist” and the complications multiply. The author, a Chinese-American woman who went to Hunter College knows this world in a way that fills the book with the kind of granular world building that really grounds the story (like The Bear did for Chicago Italian Beef joints). And if Pride and Prejudice updated isn’t enough of a hook, it is also pitched as a “Crazy Rich Asians from the other side of the class divide.” I’ll also add the setting evokes West Side Story for me. REPS: New Leaf
SECOND CHANCES (older material worth a new look)
SPY THRILLER
For fans of Lawrence of Arabia and Mission Impossible
Potential logline: Three Allied spies head to Istanbul on separate journeys to prevent a German-fomented Middle Eastern uprising that could turn the tide of World War I.
Greenmantle by John Buchan (Public Domain, 1916) Fun fact: Alfred Hitchcock, who directed an adaptation of Buchan’s better-known hit The Thirty-Nine Steps, really wanted to make this with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, but his estate’s money demands were too rich for the legendary director. Luckily, the book is now in the public domain allowing you to go where Hitchcock couldn’t. And for a book that’s more than a century old, the story remains particularly timely — it centers on a German plot during World War I to foment a Muslim uprising in the Middle East that will force the Allies to divert troops, giving the Germans a chance to succeed on the European front. It’s got adventure to rival any action film of today as three spies, including Richard Hannay, the lead from The Thirty-Nine Steps, separately cross Europe to rendezvous in Istanbul to thwart the plot. Expect encounters with German spies, car chases, escapes from near death, a femme fatale, exotic locales like Vienna, Istanbul and Budapest and a climax on a battlefield that would make for a great set piece. There’s been some adaptations of other Buchan books featuring Hannay, including a 1980s British prequel series, but none tackling Greenmantle. If this worked, there are four other Hannay novels to adapt, meaning it could be a franchise. (And the success of The Kingsman prequels shows that period doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker.) REPS: Did I mention it is PD? Download a free copy here.
FANTASY/ALT HISTORY
For fans of Interview with a Vampire, Now You See Me and Watchmen
Potential logline: Aristocrats and enslaved people battle over control of magic during the French and Haitian revolutions in an alt history version of the early 1800s.
A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry (Redhook, 2020) Parry has a new novel coming, The Magician’s Daughter about a magician raised on a secret island who ventures into 1900s London to return magic to the world that has possibilitie.,HUH?! But I really like the world-building in her earlier book. It’s an alt-history story that adds vampires and magic to the French and Haitian revolutions and the imperial rivalries of early 1800s Europe. Here we follow three characters — a young enslaved woman who gets caught up in the Haitian revolution, a Frenchwoman who works with Robespierre to bring about the Reign of Terror and soon-to-be British Prime Minister William Pitt. In this world some people have magical powers — Robespierre is a necromancer, for example— and they use their power to oppress others, like enslaved people. But some of the enslaved also have magical powers of their own and despite the best efforts of white elites, they can’t entirely be suppressed. The book really shines in the premise and the world building here. Parry is masterful at mapping the supernatural onto the real world events of the late 1700s and early 1800s and then infusing the story with deeper meaning to explore slavery, monarchies and the pursuit of individual freedom. Perhaps the tepid ratings (though great reviews) of the similar Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell will chill interest in this. My argument would be that this, with its more diverse cast and exploration of is better positioned for today’s audiences and setting it in the French and Haitian revolutions gives it more drama and action. Think of it as a throwback Watchmen. REPS: APA