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Pan Macmillan has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights for four more novels by bestselling thriller writer David Baldacci.
Trish Jackson, Pan Mac fiction editorial director, negotiated the deal with Arabella Stein on behalf of the Aaron Priest Agency in the US. The first title in the new deal, which will be the sixth in his King and Maxwell series, is scheduled for spring 2013.
Baldacci, who has been published by Pan Macmillan since 2003, said: “I’m thrilled to continue my partnership with Pan Macmillan. The UK was a tough nut for me for a long time and Macmillan has blown my socks off with their enthusiasm and their plan for me. They have made that plan work and now I’m really on a roll, which is great, because for 12 years I wasn’t.”
The author secured his first UK number one hardback bestseller for The Sixth Man last year and overall his print sales grew 22% year on year.
Baldacci said the second book in the deal will be the sixth title in his Camel Club series, with plans to bring back the character of Will Robbie from The Innocent—published next week in the UK—for the third and fourth books. “For my first 10 books I never wrote any in a series, but now I’m really into a series phase.”
Next year Scholastic will publish Baldacci’s first foray into young adult territory, with the sixth instalment of the publisher’s multimedia franchise The 39 Clues. Baldacci said: “I had a real blast writing it, and it has really whetted my appetite, so I’m thinking about doing a YA of my own. It will be about serious issues, but with an allegorical, metaphorical stance.”