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As the Christopher Reich espionage novel "Rules of Deception" climbs to the top of the bestseller lists, Paramount Pictures and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura have hired Adam Cozad to turn the tale into a screenplay.

Studio and producer acquired the book more than a year before its publication this summer by Doubleday.

Thriller focuses on a physician who loses his wife when she falls in a ravine while they're hiking in the Swiss Alps.

The grieving doc receives a letter addressed to his wife, learns she wasn't who he thought she was and soon finds himself in the center of a mess that could result in nuclear war in the Middle East.

Cozad is reteaming with di Bonaventura after writing the geopolitical thriller "Dubai," which will be exec produced by Eric Bana. Cozad will begin writing immediately after he finishes adapting David Morell novel "The Brotherhood of the Rose" for Warner Bros.

Studio has franchise hopes for "Deception." The author, a former investment banker who wrote "The Patriot's Club" and "The Devil's Banker," is working on a second installment to the tale.