Paramount Pictures has optioned "The Rules of Deception," the first of a two-novel series by Christopher Reich ("The Patriot's Club"). Lorenzo di Bonaventura will produce reports Variety.

Story follows a physician for Doctors Without Borders who shares an addiction to extreme sports with his wife. When they hike in the Swiss Alps, she falls into an inaccessible ravine.

The doctor later receives a letter addressed to his wife. The contents put him in the center of a conspiracy that could result in nuclear war in the Middle East.

Book will be published in summer 2008. Reich is already writing the follow-up, "Rules of Vengeance."