Ever read a good book and wonder what kind of film it would make?

That’s how I felt about The Truth, Michael Palin’s recent novel about a middle-aged British journalist’s quest to write his own tome about a famous globetrotting crusader for human rights. On the surface, this work is quiet, serious, unprepossessing … unusual for Palin, known for his hilarious turns on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. But underneath, the story is all about doing what’s right, even if it means uncovering wrongs from the past, and that’s a deceptively simple concept.

I think it might work well on the big screen.

Not sure if that’s a possibility, but anything can happen, right? There’s good dialogue, strong descriptive content, a powerful story and a celebrity writer behind the pages. Why wouldn’t this be a good option for the cinema, I ask?

Fine: There’s not a lot of sex … at least, nothing graphic. That could potentially be a turn-off to Hollywood, especially in this age of Fifty Shades of Grey. Still, it has a lot to like, and the bloodlines are impressive. Maybe one day someone will look at this as a strong cinematic project; it’s still a relatively new novel, and it’s quite topical. And it’s a lot more interesting than FSoG, that’s for sure.

It would be nice in the future to see The Truth playing in the theaters. I’d go to see it, definitely. Perhaps one day that will happen.

Sooner, I hope, rather than later.