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Contraband, the crime and thriller imprint of Saraband Books, has signed another book from Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author Graeme Macrae Burnet, as well as a new title from Iain Maitland.
Macrae Burnet’s new novel The Accident on the A35 will be published on 26th October. The publisher holds world rights with rights already sold for Germany and Australasia.
The Accident on the A35 is a psychological thriller that revisits the small French town of Saint-Louis, and the diffident Inspector Georges Gorski, who appeared in the Macrae's debut novel The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau (Contraband). "Darkly humorous, subtle and sophisticated, The Accident on the A35 burrows deep into the psyches of its characters and explores the forgotten corners of small-town life", the publisher said.
Publisher Sara Hunt said: “His Bloody Project was, of course, a huge success and it’s testament to Graeme’s talent that he’s followed it up with a very impressive sequel to ...Adèle Bedeau. The Accident on the A35 is set in a very different world to His Bloody Project, but it also is offbeat, clever, literary fiction that explores the foibles and complexities of its main characters. It’s very much a novel that plays to the strengths that has made Graeme’s writing so popular.”
Macrae's His Bloody Project has sold in excess of 120,000 copies in the UK alone, according to the publisher. As well as the shortlisting for the Man Booker Prize 2016, the novel won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award, and it has been shortlisted for an LA Times Book Prize in the Mystery/Thriller category.
Meanwhile, the publisher has also acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Sweet William: Life and death played out over 48 hours by Iain Maitland. The novel follows a father who is so desperate to be with his young diabetic son that he escapes from a secure psychiatric unit.
The publisher said: "Sweet William is a perceptive and deeply affecting novel about a father who will do anything to be with his son again. Skilfully dealing with topics such as mental health, parental rights and child protection, it is by turns, adrenaline-pumping, moving, blackly humorous and tragic, with the action filtered through the voice of an unforgettable narrator."
Journalist Maitland has a track record of writing about mental health. Dear Michael, Love Dad (Hodder) is a book of letters written to his son, who suffered from depression and anorexia. Maitland is an ambassador for Stem4, the teenage mental health charity, and talks regularly for Employees Matter about mental health issues in the workplace.
Sweet William will be published on 19th October.