A tiny publisher based in Naples, Fla., is betting the farm (to the tune of $200,000) on the appeal of a fledgling novelist who was a former FBI agent, and whose book Vapors, set to appear this spring, is described as a political thriller designed to appeal equally to men and women. Publisher Michael Mueller, a private investor whose background is in insurance and banking, told PW his aim with two-year-old Admiral House Publishing is to create a small operation that can be more flexible and responsive than the giants, and he is willing to work with untried authors he thinks have wide appeal. Wes DeMott, author of Vapors (and of last year's Walking K, his first novel), is the man who is getting the kind of promotional push many authors only dream of. He is a charismatic character, and Mueller has signed him to a five-book deal. "I'm betting most of the house on Wes," Mueller said -- although its handful of other authors also includes Hollis Alpert. "I want to do what it takes to put Vapors, Wes and Admiral House on the map." To this end he has signed up a full-time publicist, Amy Baron; has been wining and dining local and regional Barnes &Noble managers (and getting some testimonials from them as to the quality of the novel); and Admiral House is about to hire LPC to handle distribution. There will be an initial print run for Vapor of 35,000 copies, hundreds of special reader galleys and a 15-city tour for DeMott. Will all this spell success for what Mueller describes as "a little guy in the world of giants"? We'll have to wait and see.

ENCORE FOR HILLARY
Only last week we reported that Hillary Rodham Clinton was to be the subject of a major biography for Knopf by Carl Bernstein. Now comes word that Gail Sheehy is at work on a book for Random House's Bob Loomis that will be on a smaller scale but will come out much sooner -- probably, in fact, said Loomis, by early fall. The editor said that Sheehy, known for her books about the "passages" in people's lives, wrote about the First Lady before she had that title, in 1992, and had been working intensively to bring her study up to date, for an extensive article in the current issue of Vanity Fair. Loomis got hold of an advance copy of the article and asked Sheehy to expand it into a book. The untitled book, signed through her agent, Lynn Nesbit at ICM, will concentrate, said Loomis, on Mrs. Clinton's marriage and relationship with the President. He added, "Gail's knowledge of what women go through in their lives can certainly be applied here." Did he see the book as a conflict with the planned Bernstein tome? "I think proposals for books on Hillary are a running refrain at editorial meetings these days -- I know of at least two others making the rounds-and everything depends on what kind of a book you have, and when you bring it out."

THE DEBT TO JOYCE
John Lanchester, whose The Debt to Pleasure was a stylish literary succès d'estime a couple of years back that was translated into 19 languages, has changed publishers in London, but not here, where Henry Holt's Marian Wood remains his staunch linchpin. His new novel is called Mr. Philips and it can be characterized, said Wood (who is not normally given to such high-concept summations) as "Leopold Bloom meets Rabbit Engstrom." In brief, it is the story of an upper-middle-aged Londoner who loses his job but sets out the next day anyway, as if for work as usual, to cast himself adrift upon the city, getting to know it -- and himself -- at leisure. The novel is a detailed minute-by-minute account of his day in contemporary London, written in a third-person stream-of-consciousness mode. It was part of a two-book contract with Faber in London, agented by Coretta King at A.P. Watt, and went for a reported half a million. No word on the money here, though Wood reports it as "substantial." The book,which Wood describes as "wonderfully funny and touching," will be a lead title for Holt in the next winter/ spring list.

SHORT TAKES
The late bestselling novelist Irving Stone was a notable chronicler of his native state of California, and his Men to Match My Mountains is regarded as a classic on the development of the West. Now his widow, Jean Stone, long Irving's collaborator, has pulled together, for California's sesquicentennial, a selection from that work, From Mud-Flat Cove to Statehood: California 1840-50, which will be published by little Quill Driver/Word Dancer Books, of Clovis, Calif., in the spring.... Of accounts of ill-fated Arctic and Antarctic expeditions there seems no end, and one by Jennifer Niven McJunkin, on a similarly disastrous Canadian expedition in 1913, was bought from the John A. Ware agency a few months back by Hyperion's Will Schwalbe for a healthy six-figure sum. The Ice Master has since made strong sales to the U.K., Germany and France, and more are expected.... Another forthcoming title doing well in foreign sales is E=MC2 by David Bodanis, a title acquired by Walker from agent Carol Mann for publication this fall. New Walker rights manager Eileen Pagan reports sales to the U.K., Italy, Germany and the Netherlands that already add up to $350,000.... A series of three high-tech action-adventure novels about an elite anti-terrorist team, Seal/Six by Michael Murray, has been sold to Penguin Putnam editor Dan Slater by AEI's Ken Atchity and Chi-Li Wong, in association with co-producer Jack Allen.