Hemlock Press secures two further Stig Abell detective novels

Rights to two further detective Jake Jackson novels by author and presenter Stig Abell have been acquired by HarperFiction crime imprint, Hemlock Press.

Kathryn Cheshire, senior commissioning editor at Hemlock Press, negotiated the deal with Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown, securing UK and Commonwealth rights (including Canada) to the two new novels.

The third book in the detective Jake Jackson series, The Burial Place, will be published in spring 2025. The latest deal is for books five and six in Abell’s series.  

Abell presents the breakfast show on Times Radio, a station he helped to launch in 2020. Before that he was a regular presenter on Radio 4’s “Front Row” and was the editor and publisher of the Times Literary Supplement.

Cheshire said: “Stig is an absolute dream author to work with. He always has brilliant ideas, his writing is highly evocative and accomplished, and his genuine love for the crime and thriller genre shines through on every page. I feel like our two main protagonists, Jake and Livia, are two close friends, and I can’t wait to see what Stig has in store for them.” 

Abell said: “I’m thrilled to get the chance to hang out a bit more with the inhabitants of Little Sky. In this latest one, inspired by Josephine Tey’s wonderful The Daughter of Time, Jake gets the ultimate cold case. It’s a crime committed in the distant past, a tale of historical murder and betrayal. So still no technology for him to worry about, but there will be mystery, some love and procreation, and inevitably some nude wild swimming. I can’t wait to write it.” 

Summerhayes said: “Stig is so brilliant and prolific that I’ve only just had time to read book four. The Jake Jackson series just gets better and better so five and six promise great things.”