New Donato Carrisi thriller to Little, Brown

Little, Brown imprint Abacus has acquired bestselling Italian thriller writer Donato Carrisi's latest novel The Girl in the Fog.

Commissioning editor Ailah Ahmed acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Charlotte Seymour at Andrew Nurnberg Associates, which has recently taken on the author from The Italian Literary Agency and now represents all rights. The Girl in the Fog was originally published by Longanesi as La ragazza nella nebbia and has sold over 120,000 copies since publication in November last year, according to Little, Brown.

The Girl in the Fog opens with the disappearance of 15-year-old Anna Lou, on a cold winter’s night in a small town in the Italian mountains. Vogel, a celebrated detective specialising in murder cases, investigates two prime suspects: a lonely literature professor and a teenage boy who features heavily in Anna Lou’s diaries. Vogel, unlike others, doesn’t look for conventional evidence or DNA. Instead, he conjures up a brutal media storm to deliver the public what it wants: a monster.

Little, Brown will publish the title in November 2017, priced £12.99, as a trade paperback.

Rights to The Girl in the Fog have sold in a six-figure deal to Calmann-Lévy in France, as well as to Atrium in Germany, Duomo in Spain and Spring in Taiwan. A film adaptation is currently underway, which Carrisi himself is writing. The cast is still to be announced, but is described as a "major international" co-production for 2017. Carrisi’s own production company Gavila (a collaboration between the author and Italy’s Colorado Films) is in talks with Germany’s Constantin Films and Universal/Focus Features.  

Little, Brown has published Donato Carrisi since 2010 with his bestselling debut The Whisperer and has published four further titles by the author.

Carrisi lives in Rome and since 1999 has been working as a TV screenwriter.