Anthony Bourdain’s Crime Novel to Become TV Series

"Gone Bamboo" tells the story of an assassin, his wife and a botched hit

anthony bourdain at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards
Anthony Bourdain attends the Creative Arts Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater on September 10, 2016 in Los Angeles.
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Fans of the late Anthony Bourdain know him best for his nonfiction work, including his memoir Kitchen Confidential and, of course, his popular travel series No Reservations and Parts Unknown. But Bourdain also dabbled in fiction, writing two mystery novels — 1995’s Bone in the Throat and 1997’s Gone Bamboo, the latter of which is now slated to become a TV series.

As Deadline reports, producers Webster Stone and Robert Stone have acquired the rights to Gone Bamboo for a scripted series. The novel is set on the island of St. Martin and follows “sharp-shooting, hedonistic assassin Henry Denard” after he botches a career-capping hit and “must enlist the help of his skilled, stunning, and volatile wife to save their skins, dispatch the villains, and keep the peace — at all costs — in their tropical paradise.”

“I wanted to write a sociopath beach book,” Bourdain wrote in the book’s introduction. “I wanted a hero and heroine as lazy, mercenary, lustful and free of redeeming qualities as I sometimes see myself.”

“Tony might have had a real career as a crime novelist if those damn travel shows didn’t keep getting in the way,” Robert Stone said in a statement.

This isn’t the first time Bourdain’s work has been adapted into a scripted television show. Kitchen Confidential was turned into a Fox sitcom starring Bradley Cooper as the chef in 2005, but it was canceled after just 13 episodes.

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