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Simon & Schuster UK has snapped up Alexandra Benedict’s (also known as A K Benedict) high-concept thriller, Little Red Death.
Fiction deputy publishing director Katherine Armstrong acquired world all-language rights in a two-book deal with Diana Beaumont, then at Marjacq Scripts, now at DHH Literary Agency. Simon & Schuster UK will publish Little Red Death in February 2025. Offers and auctions are currently underway in Italy, Germany, The Netherlands and Brazil.
"DI Lyla Rondell is on the case of a lifetime," the synopsis says. "Tasked with investigating a series of perplexing deaths, the only lead she has is that each appears to be based on a different classic fairy tale... Faced with the fact that everything she knows is fiction, Lyla will have to take a little creative license of her own if she’s going to turn the final page on the killings."
Armstrong said: "Alexandra is one of the most innovative and brain-teasing authors currently at work today. I adore her puzzling Christmas mysteries and when she first pitched this idea to me I was hooked. This is high-concept, many-layered fiction that takes the reader on a journey into the heart of writing itself. Always entertaining, always thought-provoking, her writing and creativity never cease to impress me and Little Red Death is no exception. I truly can’t wait for readers to get their teeth into this hugely enjoyable novel in February."
Benedict added: "Growing up in Dorset, on the edge of the New Forest, I was a lonely, autistic-and-ADHD-but-yet-to-know-it child, and turned to reading and writing to keep me afloat. Books sustain me to this day. Little Red Death is a love song to stories. Steeped in cream teas and mysteries, fae, folklore and fairytales, it’s an exploration, and celebration, of beloved books and the act of writing, crime fiction and culpability, love and loss, and beginnings, middles and endings of all kinds."
Beaumont commented: "Alexandra is a dizzyingly clever and compelling crime writer and Little Red Death takes her to new heights. Working with Katherine and the rest of the S&S team, who are so ambitious for this book, has been a fairytale—and I am confident that this one will have a very happy ending."