Bill Browder thriller goes to S&S UK amid translation rights frenzy

Simon & Schuster UK has landed Bill Browder's real-life thriller Freezing Order, which has also been at the centre of a flurry of translation deals and secured a six-figure audio deal.  

Deputy publishing director Ian Marshall acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the Red Notice sequel from Patrick Walsh at the PEW Literary Agency. Freezing Order will be published in 2022. 

"It follows the events described in Bill Browder’s first book, the Sunday Times bestseller and the New York Times Number One bestseller Red Notice—the story of how Browder, a Moscow-based hedge fund manager, was expelled from Russia after exposing corruption at the companies he invested in," reads the synopsis. "After his expulsion, these companies were stolen by corrupt Russian officials and used in a massive $230 million tax rebate fraud. When Browder’s Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, investigated, he discovered who was involved and testified against them. In retaliation, Sergei was arrested, tortured and held for 358 days in detention, and ultimately killed by guards with rubber batons on 16th November 2009."

Browder has moved from Bantam UK to S&S UK and in a separate contract has signed up again with Priscilla Painton at Simon & Schuster USA, according to Walsh, who added: "We have done immediate translation deals on Freezing Order for the Finnish, Dutch and Brazilian rights with WSOY, Atlas and Intrinseca—and I’m sure we’ll sell the book to all 27 of Bill’s translation publishers soon. We’ve also closed a good six-figure deal on Freezing Order for the audio rights with Troy Juliar at Recorded Books."

S&S UK added: "Freezing Order tells the story of how Browder has gone after the people who received the $230 million that Sergei was killed over. It begins the moment Browder’s team tracked the money as it flowed out of Russia, through the Baltics and Cyprus, and on to Western countries. Everywhere it moved, it corrupted... Ultimately, Freezing Order shows how Browder’s investigations were integral to the 2016 Trump Tower meeting and the Helsinki Summit, and explains exactly why Putin interfered in the US election in order to help Donald Trump get elected. It also led to the exposure of the largest money laundering scheme Europe has ever seen, a quarter-trillion-dollar scandal based in Estonia and Denmark."