Century signs Tony Parsons' first standalone psychological thriller

Century will publish Tony Parsons’ first standalone psychological thriller.

Publisher Selina Walker has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in two new novels from agent Jonny Geller at Curtis Brown by the journalist and author.

The first novel, Your Neighbour’s Wife, is set to publish in spring 2021. “It is a scorching psychological thriller narrated by a husband and wife who seem to have everything,” according to the synopsis. “A single night of madness, one of them puts everything at risk and their perfect lives become a nightmare in which there seems to be only solution – murder.”

Walker said: “I have always believed Tony Parsons to be one of the best writers of complex human relationships working today. He does empathy and emotion brilliantly. He charts all too believably the dark psychological disintegration that is often a prelude to a terrible crime. Your Neighbour’s Wife will speak to the millions of fans who loved Tony’s classic novel Man & Boy as well as to fans of his gripping Max Wolfe crime novels. I am super-excited to be publishing it as a key title on Century in early 2021.”

Parsons said: “I am happy, honoured and excited to continue the partnership with my editor Selina Walker and the brilliant team at Century and Arrow who made the Max Wolfe series a bigger success than I ever anticipated in my wildest dreams”.

The book "will be my first stand-alone psychological thriller, a 'Fatal Attraction' for our time," said Parsons. He added: "It is both a love story and a murder story, the tale of a marriage and one life-wrecking mistake."

Parsons is a London-based journalist and author, whose books have been translated into more than 40 languages.  3.2m books for £20.1m, with his biggest seller 2000’s Man and Boy (HarperCollins) at 1.1 million copies sold.