Farrow's #MeToo probe goes to Fleet for 'significant' sum

Fleet is publishing investigative reporter Ronan Farrow’s book, Catch and Kill, about his year-long investigation into sexual misconduct that triggered the #MeToo movement. Following a “very significant deal”, the book will be published by the Little, Brown imprint in 2019 in tandem with its US counterpart, with the date to be confirmed.

The book follows Farrow’s year-long investigation into Harvey Weinstein that resulted in October 2017 in the publication of the first allegations of rape and sexual assault against the Hollywood producer in the New Yorker, as well as Farrow’s subsequent exposés about Weinstein’s attorneys, private investigators and co-conspirators in the media.

Catch and Kill was snapped up by Fleet publisher Ursula Doyle in the UK in “a very significant deal”, according to the publisher, and “continues Farrow's award-winning investigation into sexual misconduct and the machine deployed by powerful men to silence survivors of abuse and threaten reporters chasing those survivors’ stories". Fleet said: “Featuring original reporting and stunning revelations, Catch and Kill will tell in full, for the first time, how far private investigators, former spies, high-priced lawyers and embattled executives went to terrorise, intimidate and silence the women whose stories helped launch an international conversation on sexual misconduct and the abuse of power.”

The title is described by Fleet as “both a deeply personal story about a reporter grappling with how much to put on the line to protect the truth, and one that expands our understanding of the forces in law, politics and media that maintained a conspiracy of silence around Weinstein and other men in power committing gross abuses with impunity”.

Catch and Kill documents dramatic acts of courage and sacrifice – and of betrayal and cowardice – from law-enforcement agencies to newsrooms, the synopsis reads. It pulls back the curtain on a world of threats, shadowy sources and undercover operatives drawn from elite, international intelligence agencies and exposes new twists connecting several of the most significant stories of the past year, offering one of the essential records of the #MeToo movement.

Doyle acquired British and Commonwealth rights from Little, Brown US through Lynn Nesbit at Janklow & Nesbit in New York. Fleet, which launched in 2016, will publish in 2019 alongside Little, Brown and Company in the US. The hardback will retail at £20.

“As soon as I read Ronan Farrow’s first investigative piece for the New Yorker, I knew immediately that if he were to write a book about this important and long-ignored subject, I wanted Fleet to be his UK publisher,” Doyle said. “We are thrilled to be publishing Catch and Kill, alongside our sister company in New York.”

Reagan Arthur, publisher of Little, Brown and Company in the US, said: “Ronan Farrow’s wrenching investigative journalism has given voice to sexual abuse survivors and shaken the conscience of our culture. But, despite the urgent nature of the conversation his reporting helped ignite, some of the most astonishing disclosures about what he uncovered are still to come. We’re very proud to be publishing this important book.”

Farrow is currently a contributing writer at the New Yorker, a television presenter and investigative reporter who is currently producing his investigative work for HBO, and his previous book is War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence was published this year (HarperCollins).

He said: “It’s been important to me to keep the spotlight focused on the survivors of sexual violence who risked so much to speak to me and other reporters whose work I admire. I’ve also always said that the questions about the behind-the-scenes mechanics that suppressed these revelations are legitimate – and that, when enough time had passed, and once I had marshalled the evidence needed to tell this story, I would find a way to do so. Catch and Kill is that story.”

Farrow’s original “explosive” stories which have inspired the book won the Pulitzer Prize gold medal for Public Service – the first ever awarded to a magazine - the George Polk Award for National Reporting, the National Magazine Award for Public Interest and the Livingston Award, among other awards.

In January Bloomsbury signed a book from two New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, who also exposed decades of sexual misconduct by Weinstein