Doubleday lands latest from Hallie Rubenhold in six-figure deal

Doubleday has snapped up Hallie Rubenhold's new book, Bad Women, which tells the story of the 1910 murder of Belle Elmore, by her husband Dr Crippen, and the extraordinary women caught up in these events. 

Jane Lawson acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, with exclusive Europe and audio rights, for a six-figure sum from Sarah Ballard at United Agents. Bad Women will be published as a Doubleday hardback in 2022.

Rubenhold is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling The Five: The Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (Doubleday) which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2019 earlier this week. Mainstreet Pictures, best known for producing the award-winning series Unforgotten, are working with Vanity Fair scriptwriter Gwyneth Hughes to develop The Five for the BBC.  The Five, which has sold 12,799 copies in hardback since February, through BookScan, has also sold in German, Italian, Russian, Finnish and Japanese languages, care of United Agents.

Lawson said: "Rubenhold is pioneering the field of feminist true crime, and her Baillie Gifford Prize shortlisting and the ongoing sales of The Five are only what it deserves. It is a brilliant book by an outstandingly compassionate and engaged writer - it is already shifting the way we discuss and teach key events of the past. Her new book will be equally important and gamechanging. She will recast a well-known story with compulsive energy and passion, bringing her historian’s eye, storytelling gifts and fierce sense of justice to challenge all our assumptions and shift our worldview. I am indescribably thrilled and proud to continue to publish Rubenhold at Doubleday. All of my colleagues at Transworld utterly relish this opportunity to take her career to new heights."

"In Bad Women, Rubenhold once again places the women back at the centre of their own narrative. The North London Cellar Murder for which Dr Crippen was executed in 1910, with its shocking details, extravagant characters, illicit romance and bizarre twists, shook the turn-of-the-century world. What makes it truly unusual is the sheer number of women dominating its cast: women with careers, ambitions, drive and true-grit," reads the synopsis. "These secretaries, managers, doctors and nurses, boarding house-keepers, actresses, circus-performers, journalists, singers, teachers, and dressmakers; brave immigrants, single-mothers, working wives, widows and adventurous daughters are the real heroes. Uniquely, Rubenhold will be investigating the mysterious death of Crippen's first wife in America and exploring the phenomenon of femicide, both in the past and present."

Rubenhold added: "The North London Cellar Murder is a multi-layered transatlantic epic of a story with women at the very heart of it. Once again, Bad Women will not be a killer-centric story, but one which turns the traditionally male, true crime narrative on its head and will change our entire perspective of Dr Crippen and the events surrounding the murder of his wife. I couldn't be more excited that Jane Lawson and her sensational team at Doubleday are publishing this."