I Come in Peace Star Matthias Hues Unveils Gripping New Novel Shadow Affairs

Holiday programming note for the action crowd: if you fire up the 1990 Dolph Lundgren oddity 'I Come in Peace' this time of year, here is a fun bit of timing. The movie's alien heavy, Matthias Hues, just put out a novel. It is called 'Shadow Affairs' and you can buy it on Amazon right now.

How this started as a movie and turned into a book

This one has a pretty wild backstory. Hues, who has been in the Hollywood action trenches for more than 40 years and also works behind the camera, went to Uzbekistan as a guest of an international film festival. While he was there, soaking up the post-Cold War history and current geopolitics, he banged out a CIA thriller screenplay on location.

It moved fast at first. A major Uzbek bank was ready to finance, but only if the President's daughter signed off. She is a major cultural and political gatekeeper. After Hues pitched it, she gave a yes in principle and kicked it to the country's intelligence services for a review. That is where the momentum died. The agencies shut it down, saying the script hit too close to real, sensitive events. The film never got made.

Years later, with no government notes to dodge, Hues turned the script into a novel. That became 'Shadow Affairs' - and, for what it is worth, the project is now said to be on the radar of a major Hollywood action director.

What 'Shadow Affairs' is about

The hook is straightforward: the CIA burns one of its own and he refuses to stay erased. The lead, Mark Anderson, is the kind of off-the-books asset the Agency pretends does not exist. When a mission goes sideways, he is wiped from the system and disappears into the mountains of Central Asia, specifically Kyrgyzstan. Years later a buried conspiracy stirs back to life, pulling him into a mess of betrayals, shifting loyalties, and power games that span borders.

The pitch leans on big, clean genre promises: rapid-fire action with a dose of geopolitical detail. Think the lane shared by Jason Bourne, Jack Reacher, Mitch Rapp, Tom Clancy, and Jack Carr.

'The CIA created him. Then they tried to erase him. Now he is coming back.'

A taste of the vibe

The Amazon preview drops you into a bleak little room: a thug named Sergje, a girl with a wig slipping and mascara smeared, a syringe on the nightstand. Anderson steps in and, in Russian, tells Sergje to stand up. A second man comes out of the shadows to choke him out. Anderson answers with muscle memory, flips the guy with a quick judo throw, and never slows down. He sees the girl clearly and realizes she is Anna, someone he knows, older and hollowed out. Sergje fishes a pistol from under a pillow. Anderson has already run that possibility three times in his head. The whole thing plays fast, clinical, and mean. It is also in line with the book's survivalist pitch: when Anderson vanishes into Kyrgyzstan, even the wolves keep their distance.

The sales pitch in one breath

• Title: Shadow Affairs
• Author: Matthias Hues (the villain from 'I Come in Peace')
• Origin: Adapted from a shelved film project written in Uzbekistan and blocked for being too close to real history
• Premise: A deniable CIA asset is erased, goes to ground in Kyrgyzstan, and resurfaces when a conspiracy comes back to bite
• Tone and comps: Fast, violent spy thriller with geopolitics; in the zone of Reacher, Bourne, Mitch Rapp, Tom Clancy, Jack Carr
• Status: Out now on Amazon; reportedly being eyed by a major Hollywood action director

If that reads like your airport-thriller sweet spot, you have a new holiday read.