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Still No Letup in Flow Of Princess Diana Books
Judy Quinn -- 11/10/97
Major trade houses sign up more titles on the book world's bestselling (for now) celebrity
Although one wonders just how many books about Diana can stay on the bestseller lists, publishers haven't stopped committing to deals for more on the tragic princess. SMP senior editor Charlie Spicer will bring out what he terms an "instant hardcover" next year, to be entitled Death of a Princess: An Investigation, by Thomas Sancton and Scott MacLeod, Time magazine's Paris bureau chief and Middle East correspondent based in Paris, respectively. The deal for the book, which was shopped at the Frankfurt Book Fair and has also garnered a six-figure deal (like SMP's) from U.K. publisher Orion, was negotiated by Sarah Chalfant of the Andrew Wylie agency.

Spicer told PW that the book will focus on the police investigation of the crash that killed the princess, her companion, Dodi Al Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, and will no doubt also address all those rampant conspiracy theories about her death. And according to the authors, who extensively commentated on the crash for ABC, CNN and other networks, "We know precisely what bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones told investigators before returning to England."

SMP already has released a pictorial book on Diana and committed to a full-fledged bio of Diana to be written by Anne Edwards that will be published in 1999.

Over at the Random House stable, Times Books plans an August 1998 publication for a book focusing on the last year of Diana's life, by Sally Bedell Smith, who wrote bestselling biographies of William Paley and Pamela Harriman for S&S (which has a nice monopoly on the Diana sales with its Andrew Morton reprints and reissues.) The book, a specially contracted one-book deal, by Times Books publisher Peter Bernstein, joins other adult Diana titles in the Random family, including Donald Spoto's biography from Harmony and Anthony Holden's from Random House.
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