S&S Lands Disaster Tale
In a high-six-figure deal, Jonathan Karp and Jofie Ferrari-Adler at Simon & Schuster took world rights to Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic’s Indianapolis. The book, acquired after a multiday auction overseen by Rick Christian at the Alive Literary Agency, is subtitled The True Story of the Greatest Naval Disaster in U.S. History and the Sixty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man. Vincent, a former naval officer, is the bestselling author of such books as Heaven Is for Real (written with Todd Burpo), and S&S said there are currently more than 14 million copies of her 10 books in print. Vladic, a filmmaker, has been researching the book’s subject for a potential documentary for years. The book will explore the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in WWII, as well as the lengthy campaign that followed to clear the ship’s captain of wrongdoing. The vessel played a critical role in the war, delivering the atomic bomb to the Enola Gay (the plane that went on to drop the bomb on Hiroshima). The ship fell under attack days after completing its top-secret mission and, following a botched rescue effort, only about 300 men, of the 850 who fled the ship, survived. Separately, National Geographic is working on a documentary about the search to locate the ship, and Vladic is attached to that project as a producer.
Fowler Tackles Nouveau Riche at SMP
The author of the bestseller Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (2013), Therese Anne Fowler sold a currently untitled novel about the Vanderbilts to Hope Dellon at St. Martin’s Press. The Macmillan division is Fowler’s current publisher, and St. Martin’s said the novel will take readers from “the extravagant world of the newly rich robber barons from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age.” Reimagining the lives of three women in the famous moneyed American family—Alva, Gertrude, and Gloria Morgan—the book will follow each woman as she ascends the social ladder in her respective enclave of Manhattan; Newport, R.I.; and Paris. Wendy Sherman handled the U.S. sale for Fowler, and the book has also been acquired, in separate deals, in the U.K. (by Two Roads) and in the Netherlands (by Luitingh Sijthoff).
Piasecki Settles In at Square One
Square One Publishers has closed a paperback deal with Bruce Piasecki, acquiring world rights to two of his backlist titles: Doing More with Less (Wiley, 2012) and Doing More with Teams (Wiley, 2013). Piasecki, an established business book author and founder of the consulting firm AHC Group, will be publishing his new book, New World Companies, with Square One in November. These backlist titles, bought by Square One publisher Rudy Shur, will, along with Piasecki’s forthcoming book, deepen the publisher’s presence in the business category. As Shur noted, Piasecki has “a tremendous following among the world’s largest corporations.” The backlist titles, sold by Bob Diforio at D4EO Literary, will be released in January 2016.
Dunne Nabs Israeli Thriller
Peter Wolverton, editor-in-chief at Thomas Dunne Books, acquired North American rights to Nir Hezroni’s Three Envelopes. The two-book deal was handled by Rena Rossner at the Deborah Harris Agency, and the book is set for a fall 2016 release. Originally published in Hebrew last year, the novel, Rossner explained, is “a chilling portrait of the mind of a master killer.” It follows an unnamed Mossad agent—identified simply by the number 10,483—who has gone rogue. Rossner noted that the book offers “a glimpse into the technology of high-level Israeli intelligence operations.” Hezroni has a background in Israeli intelligence, having spent, according to Rossner, a few years in the field.
