“Jane Bond” Valerie Plame Wilson, the former C.I.A. operative, is set to release her first spy novels next year based on her experiences combined with fiction.
The New York Times reports that she has signed a book deal will Penguin Group USA to write a series of international suspense novels with Sarah Lovett, a best-selling mystery writer from Santa Fe where Wilson resides.
The novel ideas were “born out of my frustration and continuing disappointment in how female C.I.A. officers are portrayed in popular culture” Wilson told the New York Times.
Vanessa Pearson, a character spawned from Wilson’s imagination, might change that perception. Pearson is a fictional female C.I.A. agent that will star in the novels and bears the same initials as Valerie Plame.
Wilson told The New York Times, “They always tend to be cardboard characters, with heavy reliance on physicality. Of course the job has a lot of glamor. But it really is about being smarter than your average bear. Your mind is your best weapon. It’s great when you’re a good shot with an AK-47, but it’s about being clever.”
The New York Times reports that the novels will be completely vetted by the C.I.A. before publication.
Wilson received national attention when her identity was leaked by political columnist Robert Novak in 2003 after her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson publicly challenged the Iraq war.
Last year, Wilson’s C.I.A. memoir “Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House” and her husband’s book “The Politics of Truth” were combined to make a Hollywood thriller that starred Sean Penn and Naomi Watts.