One name under discussion to play the role of Litvinenko is Daniel Craig, who has honed his spy–playing credentials as James Bond in the recent film Casino Royale.

Craig, 38, has already taken on the role of an investigator pitting himself against the Russian state, in the 2005 television adaptation of Archangel, the Robert Harris novel.

An option on the film rights for the book has been sold to Braun Entertainment Group, a Beverly Hills firm.

The book, Blowing Up Russia, presents a theory that the FSB, successor to the KGB, had a role in the bombing of a block of flats in the city of Ryazan. The Kremlin blamed the blast on Chechen terrorists.

The 1999 explosions helped swing public opinion behind Vladimir Putin and win him the presidency.

Gibson Square Books, which will release the work next month, said: “The option went to Braun based on a six-figure sum.”

Any film of Litvinenko’s book may further annoy the Kremlin, which has condemned his deathbed claims that Putin was behind the poisoning with polonium-210.

Alex Goldfarb, a friend of Litvinenko, believes he was killed for setting out to prove the theory of FSB involvement.

Others involved in investigating the blasts have also been killed. In 2003 Sergei Yushenkov, who set up a commission to examine them, was gunned down in Moscow. Later that year another member of the commission, Yuri Shchekochikhin, died after apparently being poisoned.

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