Orion bags Kevin Dutton's book on the 'dark triad' of personality disorders

Orion publishing director Anna Argenio has pre-empted a book on the "dark triad" of personality disorders by The Wisdom of Psychopaths author Kevin Dutton. The title will be part of Argenio’s new as-yet-unnamed smart thinking list, announced earlier this year.

Argenio has acquired world all-language rights to Bright Shadows: Cracking the Code of the Dark Triad from Alice Welby at Kruger Cowne; the title is slated for a summer 2026 release.

The traits psychologists call the dark triad are psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism. The trio is "often relegated to outer edges of humanity: liars, dictators, criminals". But in Bright Shadows, Dutton will use the latest neuroscience to argue that rather than treating the traits as the all-or-nothing, on-or-off clinical markers of dangerous conditions, we should view them as operating on a spectrum on which we all exist. 

Orion promises that Dutton will "take readers on a shocking journey of discovery to explore how these traits evolved, how they impact interpersonal relationships and workplace dynamics and how they may, in fact, be key to our success". 

Dutton is a professor who, after 20 years of working at Cambridge and Oxford, was recently appointed Australia’s first Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Adelaide. Orion describes him as "one of the world’s foremost authorities on the wild side of personality".

Agenio called Dutton that “rare and special combination of world-leading expert and top-tier popular writer”. She added: "Bright Shadows will give a fuller understanding of the mechanisms that drive these personality characteristics, overturn common opinion and give readers the tools they need to safely harness the power of the dark triad to get ahead in life."