Headline scoops Robert Verkaik’s The Traitor of Arnhem in three-book deal

Headline has scooped a three-book deal with Robert Verkaik for The Traitor of Arnhem and two as-yet-untitled books. 

Editorial director Oliver Holden-Rea acquired world English language rights from Piers Blofeld at Sheil Land Associates. The Traitor of Arnhem will be published on 9th May 2024 as a lead title for Headline’s Welbeck imprint, with the two other books to follow in 2026 and 2028. 

“Oli and his team have done a brilliant job of publishing Robert and I look forward to building on that success,” said Blofeld. 

According to Headline, The Traitor of Arnhem “tells a never-before-told story of the betrayers of this iconic operation. One a terrifying giant of a man, a supposed hero of the resistance, the other an aristocrat and one of the Cambridge spies working from inside the heart of the Allied war effort in London”. The book already has a “major” serial deal with the Sunday Times. 

The remaining two books in the deal will “bring further important and fresh revelations about the Cambridge Five into the public domain”. 

Verkaik said: “It’s very exciting to be working with Headline and editor Oliver Holden-Rea, who backed this project from its infancy and entrusted me to follow the evidence not knowing where it might lead. This is equally true of Piers Blofeld whose creative talents have helped bring shape to these untold stories. The digitalisation of national archives around the world has opened up our recent history to public scrutiny on an unprecedented scale. And now historians are reaping the rewards.”

Holden-Rea said: “I am delighted to be working with Robert for what is certain to be a long and bright publishing future...with The Traitor of Arnhem, Robert has outdone himself, unearthing a game-changing insight into our collective past and showing how this changed the face of the 20th century as we know it. We are very proud to be his publisher.”