News
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New Jack the Ripper book announced
15 Feb 2012
Sam Carter at Biteback has bought World English rights from the agency in a book which Carter feels makes a very strong case for the identity of Jack the Ripper. In The Man Who Would Be Jack, David Bullock forensically examines fresh evidence to advance a new candidate for Jack the Ripper ; Thomas Cutbush worked in Whitechapel, was suspected at the time of the Ripper crimes, his description closely matched that given for the Ripper and he was sent to Broadmoor for similar crimes, where he died in 1903, after which the murders ceased. The book also reveals the cover up to prevent the identity of the Ripper being revealed and why.
Bullock, an actor who appeared in the BBC series Friends and Crocodiles and was a finalist in Reading’s Festival of Crime Writing, now works for Thames Valley Police. He has been researching the book for fifteen years and is the first person to have been granted access to the Broadmoor files on which the book is based.
Andrew Lownie said “Over the last twenty-five years, I have been offered countless books on Jack the Ripper but this one has the ring of truth. David Bullock convincingly shows that his candidate fits all the known evidence .”
David Bullock stated “My hope is to show the Jack the Ripper case in a brand new light and bring to the reader the fresh and intriguing tale of Thomas Hayne Cutbush, as well as dispelling the biggest myth of all - that Jack the Ripper was never caught.”
Sam Carter comments: “David and Andrew took me on a chilling tour of Whitechapel and got me hooked on this fresh and convincing take on an endlessly fascinating story. We’re delighted to have this book on the list for August this year.”
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Crying for Help is no 13 in second week of publication
14 Feb 2012
Congratulations to Casey Watson whose Crying for Help is no 13 in this week’s paperback non-fiction list.
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Latest issue of Words with JAM
11 Feb 2012
The latest edition of Words with JAM with Andrew Lownie’s column can be found at
http://issuu.com/wordswithjam/docs/wwjfebruary2012online?mode=window&viewMode=doublePage
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Sam Pivnik Holocaust memoir sold to Hodder
10 Feb 2012
Hodder & Stoughton have acquired world rights in the memoirs of Sam Pivnik, one of the few living British Holocaust survivors and it will be a major book for them at the London Book Fair.
Non-fiction Publisher Rupert Lancaster says ‘No one could read this enthralling book and remain unmoved. Sam Pivnik was 13 when the Nazis invaded Poland and changed his life forever. He survived two ghettoes, Auschwitz, working in Fürstengrube mine, the death march and the sinking of the prison ship Cap Arcona which the RAF believed was carrying fleeing members of the SS. It’s an extraordinary testimony and I believe the book will come to be recognized as an important contribution to our knowledge of that terrible period’.
Sam Pivnik will write the book with the established author, writer and broadcaster, M. J. Trow and Hodder will publish the book, now provisionally titled Ultimate Survivor in August.
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British Trivia Atlas to Summersdale
09 Feb 2012
Summersdale have bought Paul Jones’s British Trivia Atlas.
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Actress Emily Lloyd's memoirs sold
08 Feb 2012
John Blake has bought the memoirs of Wish You Were Here star Emily Lloyd. The book will discuss her Hollywood career alongside Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis as well as her troubled private life and will be published later this year.
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Crying for Help no 17 after only two days sales.
08 Feb 2012
Casey Watson’s Crying for Help has reached no 17 in the paperback non-fiction list on the basis of two days of sales.
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Rave reviews for Sean McMeekin's The Russian Origins of the First World War
06 Feb 2012
Sean McMeekin’s prize-winning new book has gathered a cluster of good reviews including:
Casting a contrarian eye on the first major conflict of the twentieth century, Sean McMeekin finds the roots of WWI inside Russia, whose leaders deliberately sought—for their own ends—to expand a brawl that the Germans wanted to keep local. The author tracks the fallout of these antique plots right down to the present geopolitical landscape. Barnes & Noble Review
An entirely new take on the origins of World War I comes as a surprise. If war guilt is to be assigned, this book argues, it should go not only (or even primarily) to Germany—the long-accepted culprit—but also to Russia… Bold reading between the lines of history Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs
Going against a century of received wisdom, Bilkent University professorMcMeekin offers a dramatic new interpretation of WWI… Rifling the archives, analyzing battle plans, and sifting through the machinations of high diplomacy, McMeekin reveals the grand ambitions of czarist Russia, which wanted control of the Black Sea straits to guarantee all-weather access to foreign markets. Maneuvering France and England into a war against Germany presented the best chance to acquire this longed-for prize. No empire had more to gain from the coming conflict, and none pushed harder to ensure its arrival. Once unleashed, however, the conflagration leapt out of control, and imperial Russia herself ranked among its countless victims. Publishers Weekly
As Sean McMeekin argues in this bold and brilliant revisionist study, Russia was as much to blame as Germany for the outbreak of the war. Using a wide range of archival sources, including long-neglected tsarist documents, he argues that the Russians had ambitions of their own (the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, no less) and that they were ready for a war once they had secured a favorable alliance with the British and the French. Orlando Figes, The Sunday Times
A bold reinterpretation of the Russian Empire’s entry into the First World War.McMeekin argues that Russia believed a European war to be in its interest, that it sought to humiliate Vienna, and that it hoped to conquer Constantinople and the Ottoman Straits. Mustafa Aksakal, author of The Ottoman Road to War in 1914
This book should forever change the ways we have understood the role of Russia in the First World War. Michael S. Neiberg, author of Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I
The Russian Origins of the First World War is a polemic in the best sense. Written in a lively and engaging style, it should provoke a much-needed debate on Russia’s role in the Great War. Michael Reynolds, author of Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908–1918
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Maths on Trial sold to Basic Books
03 Feb 2012
World rights in Coralie Colmez and Leila Schnep’s Maths on Trial , ten criminal cases in each of which, at a crucial point, a mathematical mistake played a significant role., have been bought by Basic.
