LATEST DEALS & NEWS

DONE DEALS

Christopher Reich's RULES OF DECEPTION, featuring an American doctor whose thrill-seeking personality has propelled him into war zones all over the world with Doctors Without Borders, who finds himself (and his late wife) at the centre of a global terrorist conspiracy, for publication in summer 2008, and the sequel RULES OF VENGEANCE, have been opted by Doubleday (US).



David Talbot's book about Robert Kennedy BROTHERS: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years is generating ink, but it's about the oldest John F. Kennedy story out there: that the president was "almost certainly the victim of a CIA-Mafia plot," as the NY Daily News puts it.
NYT bestselling author and two-time Edgar winner T. Jefferson Parker's LA OUTLAWS is moving to Ben Sevier at Dutton, for publication in February 2008, in a two-book deal, by Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group (NA).

Elena Forbes' DIE WITH ME (the opening chapter of which was shortlisted for the 2005 Debut Dagger Award), the first in a series introducing Detective Mark Tartaglia and the rest of Homicide West Team Five as they investigate a rash of apparent suicides involving young girls plunging to their deaths from church naves around London, to David Adams at MacAdam/Cage, in a two-book deal, by David Forrer at Inkwell Management, on behalf of Sarah Lutyens at Luytens & Rubinstein (US).

From Christina Harcar at St Martin's Press, Julia Wisdom of HarperCollins has bought UK/Commonwealth rights to Victory Square, the final thriller in the Cold War cycle by Olen Steinhauer.


At Blake Friedmann, Isobel Dixon has closed a new two-book deal with Hodder for the latest crime outings by her South African compatriot Deon Meyer, who also has a new standalone deal in Canada, where Marion Garner has signed him up for her World of Crime imprint at Random House.

IN WHAT IS undoubtedly a coup for Simon & Schuster UK, Philippa Gregory, author of The Other Boleyn Girl among other much-praised historical bestsellers, has left HarperCollins to sign a global deal with the company. Gregory has been published since 2002 by S&S US imprint Touchstone and it was Vice President and Editor-in-Chief Trish Todd who negotiated the three-book deal with Gregory's husband, Anthony Mason. Suzanne Baboneau, Publishing Director of S&S UK will work with Todd on the books. The three novels will be set during the War of the Roses, thus predating the period explored in Gregory's most recent novels. Ian Chapman, UK MD, described the move as “a tremendously exciting opportunity for us in the UK and our other Commonwealth markets to work closely with our colleagues in the US to exploit even further the potential of this remarkable author”. The first of the novels, tentatively titled The White Queen, is pencilled in for 2010.

Minette Walters Event - 11 May, London

Crime Writer Minette Walters talks to Psychoanalyst and Forensic Psychiatrist Cleo Van Velson. Minette Walters will hopefully be speaking about "how she became interested in murder and violence, where she gets inspiration for her physiological crime books and why she is intrigued by 'ordinary' characters facing situations of trauma that lead to responses that surprise not only the readers but the characters themselves."

Event details from the Connecting Conversations website:
Friday 11th May 2007 at 7-8.30pm at The Henry Thomas Room, 166-220 Holloway Road, London N7 (nearest tube Holloway Road, Picadilly Line)

Minette has been described as the Queen of British Crime Fiction. Her first novel THE ICE HOUSE won the CWA John Creasey Award in 1992, her second THE SCULPTRESS won the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the third THE SCOLD'S BRIDLE the CWA Gold Dagger Award.

Dr Cleo Van Velsen is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Forensic Psychotherapy. She is also an Adult Psychoanalyst. She works fulltime in the NHS being based in a medium secure unit in inner-city London . She is interested in the understanding and treatment of men and women who commit acts of violence. Linked to this is her interest in the way that violence can be understood through film, novels, etc. She is a co-editor of a textbook on Forensic Psychotherapy and contributing editor to the recent Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis.

Bookings Tickets £12/ £6 concessions (inc glass of wine). Tel 020 7388 8822 or via www.thebloomsbury.com. Booking fee applies.
Minette Walters' next book is 'The Chameleon's Shadow' out in September.

Quercus into profit

QUERCUS PUBLISHING HAS seen sales rise sevenfold and has moved into profit in its second year of trading, according to the company's results for calendar 2006, announced today.
Hailing a turnover figure of £3.6m (£0.5m in 2005) and pre-tax profit of £0.3m (£0.1m loss in 2005), Chairman Anthony Cheetham said that, in his experience, "it is highly unusual for a new publishing company to record a profit margin of 9% so early in its history".
Chief Executive Mark Smith attributed the exceptional sales increase to continued growth of in the contract publishing area allied to the trade publishing programme coming on stream. The trade publishing, of course, included Stef Penney's Costa Book Award-winning The Tenderness of Wolves and the launch of the Quercus crime fiction list.
With gross margin improving significantly to 49.3% (32.4% in 2005), Smith stressed the importance of the company's contract publishing which operates on a lower margin than trade publishing, "but has very few risks associated with revenue recognition. A project is only truly begun when a firm order is placed that will allow the project to proceed profitably".
The Quercus contract division printed almost 1m books in 2006, an increase of 300% on 2005 and that output is expected to increase in 2007 with new business in the US and foreign language markets in Europe and East Asia. The current year will also see the launch of Quercus Paperbacks (including the mass market version of Tenderness of Wolves), a children's list, audiobooks and a new website.
Quercus raised £2.8m through a PLUS Market listing during the year and, said Cheetham, "2006 marks the transition from a newcomer with an interesting idea to a leading independent publisher with a sound infrastructure, a promising intellectual property portfolio, and adequate funding to pursue its further ambitions."
Hat tip Publishing News
Click here for a full list of the British Book Industry Awards


Hi guys,
It's nice to see so much hype around the great writer Daphne du Maurier lately...I would like to add my news.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Today's historical mystery special
A few bits and pieces on historical mysteries today...

And from Publishers Marketplace:
Lisa McDonald's MURDER ON THE CLIFFS, a historical mystery series featuring Daphne du Maurier as the amateur sleuth, to Hope Dellon at St. Martin's, in a nice deal, in a three-book deal, by Kim Lionetti at BookEnds.

According to her agent's website, Lisa McDonald, an Australian author, also writes historical gothic romances as Joanna Challis.

DON'T HAVE A PUB DATE YET BUT WATCH OUT SOON FOR BOOK 1 2007 -- ALL SET IN CORNWALL. I JUST LOVE THOSE ENGLISH MURDER MYSTERIES.....BUT WITH A SLIGHTLY, SHALL WE SAY, 'GOTHIC', TOUCH :-)
aka
Joanna Challis
http://www.joannachallis.com