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Baskerville has acquired Under the Bridge by award-winning Canadian novelist and journalist Rebecca Godfrey, who passed away at the age of 54 in 2022, as its first non-fiction book.
Yassine Belkacemi, editorial director at John Murray and Baskerville, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Victoria Hobbs at A M Heath on behalf of Christy Fletcher at UTA. Baskerville will publish Under the Bridge as a paperback original and e-book in November 2023.
The book is currently being adapted for television by Hulu as an eight-episode limited series starring Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone. Under the Bridge, previously unpublished in the UK, centres around the 1997 murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk in British Columbia, Canada, who went to join friends at a party and never returned home.
At the time, the crime caused a national frenzy. In Under the Bridge, the publisher says, Godfrey “takes us into the hidden world of the seven teenage girls – and boy – accused of Reena’s savage murder. Laced with lyricism and insight, Under the Bridge is an unforgettable look at a haunting modern tragedy".
It will be the first non-fiction title to be published by Baskerville, the literary crime and thriller imprint of John Murray Press. Under the Bridge comes with a foreword by Mary Gaitskill who calls the book “a remarkable work of investigative journalism” along with further praise from writers Megan Abbott and Jenny Offill.
Upon original publication in 2005, Under The Bridge received one of Canada’s largest literary awards, the British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, as well as the Arthur Ellis Award for Excellence in Crime Writing. Godfrey’s novel The Torn Skirt (HarperCollins) was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.
Yassine Belkacemi said: “Under The Bridge is set to become a future true-crime classic. Rebecca Godfrey’s investigative journalism, combined with her unerring prose, makes Under the Bridge a deeply moving and affecting piece of writing. Despite Rebecca’s sad and untimely passing, this book is a lasting legacy and I look forward to it finding a new readership here in the UK.”