Brief criminal splattering’s

According to the Bookseller  Orion has triumphed in an auction for début thriller The Distance, winning a five-way best bids competition for a two-book deal, as rights are snapped up in territories elsewhere around the world.  Deputy publishing director Bill Massey bought UK and Commonwealth rights in the title.  The book features as its main character a woman known as Karla, who acts as the facilitator for the criminal community, living life on the edge of the law.

Simon & Schuster has won out in a six-way auction for debut spy novel Treason by former CIA clandestine operations officer Jason Matthews, scooping the title for a six-figure sum.

According to Book2Book, having sold more than one million copies of his début novel, The Hypnotist - over 500,000 copies sold in Sweden alone - and with translation rights now sold in 37 countries, Lars Kepler is going from strength to strength.  Both the second novel featuring Stockholm detective Joona Linna, to be published by Blue Door in September as The Nightmare (Paganinikontraktet [2010]), and the third, The Fire Witness (Eldvittnet [2011]), to be published by Blue Door in 2103) have been No 1 bestsellers.  The Hypnotist will be produced by the Swedish Film Industry (SF) and Sonet Film and will be the first Swedish feature film to be directed by Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen etc.) in 24 years. The Hypnotist will be premiered in Sweden in September and released internationally in 2013.