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Viking editorial director Joel Rickett has bought a new non-fiction espionage drama by Paul Willetts, winning an eight-publisher auction.
Rickett acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Matthew Hamilton at Aitken Alexander for an undisclosed sum.
Willetts, the author of the biography Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia, will tell the story of one of the most significant yet little-known espionage perations of the Second World War" in the tradition of Ben MacIntyre’s titles Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat. All details of the book’s subject will be kept under wraps until publication in autumn 2012.
Rickett said the book "has it all: a hidden yet historically momentous story, with some jaw-dropping twists, and a fabulous cast of characters. Paul Willetts will capture their voices and take us right into those darkened rooms".
Willetts said he had long been obsessed by the spy story in question and had been "fortunate enough to unearth a cache of extraordinary new material that adds fresh layers of intrigue.”