foreign rights Frankfurt Book Fair 2015 www.thegernertco.com JOHN GRISHAM #1 New York Times bestseller Published in 40 languages 300+ million books in print ROGUE LAWYER by John Grisham Doubleday – 20 October 2015 His phone number is unlisted. His office is a bulletproof van. He’s on the right side of the law, sort of… Sebastian Rudd is not your typical street lawyer. He works out of a customized bulletproof van, complete with Wi-Fi, a bar, a small fridge, fine leather chairs, a hidden gun compartment, and a heavily armed driver. He has no firm, no partners, no associates, and only one employee, his driver, who’s also his bodyguard, law clerk, confidant, and golf caddy. He lives alone in a small but extremely safe penthouse apartment, and his primary piece of furniture is a vintage pool table. He drinks small-batch bourbon and carries a gun. Sebastian defends people other lawyers won’t go near: a drug-addled, tattooed kid rumored to be in a satanic cult, who is accused of molesting and murdering two little girls; a vicious crime lord on death row; a homeowner arrested for shooting at a SWAT team that mistakenly invaded his house. Why these clients? Because he believes everyone is entitled to a fair trial, even if he, Sebastian, has to cheat to secure one. He hates injustice, doesn’t like insurance companies, banks, or big corporations; he distrusts all levels of government and laughs at the Justice system’s notions of ethical behavior. Sebastian Rudd is one of John Grisham’s most colorful, outrageous, and vividly drawn characters yet. Gritty, witty, and impossible to put down, Rogue Lawyer showcases the master of the legal thriller at his very best. www.jgrisham.com https://www.facebook.com/JohnGrisham John Grisham is the author of twenty-seven novels, one work of nonfiction, a collection of stories, and five novels for young readers. He lives in Virginia and Mississippi. www.thegernertco.com 2 fiction Peter Behrens, CARRY ME A devastating novel of war, love, and escape from the Governor General’s Literary Award-winning author of The Law of Dreams and The O’Briens. Literary fiction Publisher: Pantheon (US)/House of Anansi Press (Canada), February 23, 2016 Editor: Deb Garrison Agent: Sarah Burnes Material: Edited manuscript Irish-German Billy is entranced by Karin, elusive daughter of a German-Jewish industrialist, during childhood summers spent on the sun-struck Isle of Wight before the First World War. In the hungry aftermath of that war, reunited on her father’s Frankfurt estate, Karin and Billy become fascinated with elaborate ‘tribal’ rituals found in the Wild West stories of Karl May, whose Winnetou tales are among the most popular books ever published in Germany. Coming of age in Frankfurt and wild Weimar-era Berlin, Billy and Karin share passions for speed, Jazz, and nightclubs. They also share a fantasy of escape--from Germany, from history--to El Llano Estacado, the high plains of Texas and New Mexico, the vividly re-imagined setting of Karl May’s fiction. Intriguing characters braid an intricate and harrowing story together, transporting the reader from golden Edwardian summer, to London under Zeppelin attack, Ireland on the brink of its War of Independence, and Germany sinking into the Hitler era. As a society loses its civic and moral bearings, a childhood friendship deepens to a love affair with extraordinarily high stakes. Brilliantly conceived and elegantly written, Carry Me is an epic for grown-ups, an unusual love story, and a lucid meditation on Europe’s violent twentieth century. Peter Behrens’ first novel THE LAW OF DREAMS won the Governor-General’s Award, Canada’s most prestigious book prize, and has been published in nine languages. His collection of short stories, NIGHT DRIVING was published in 1987 and his second novel THE O'BRIENS was published in 2011. His stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Tin House, Brick, Best Canadian Stories, Best Canadian Essays, and many anthologies. http://www.peterbehrens.org/. • Sold to: Philippe Rey (France) www.thegernertco.com 3 Mike Binder, KEEP CALM When a bombing at 10 Downing Street wounds the Prime Minister and tests Great Britain's resolve, American ex-cop Adam Tatum must confront a conspiracy in the highest halls of power. Thriller Publisher: Henry Holt, February 2, 2016 Editor: Michael Signorelli Agent: David Gernert Material: Advance Readers Copy North American rights sold to Henry Holt in a six-figure pre-empt. • “Starts with a bang and never slows down--a very superior high-stakes thriller.”--Lee Child Former Michigan cop Adam Tatum receives an unexpected offer from Heaton Global Investments, a golden opportunity that seems almost too good to be true. He travels to 10 Downing Street to help implement a new pension program for the British Civil Service. The deal goes off without a hitch--and so does a bomb in the conference room. The Prime Minister is gravely wounded and the only attendee with a checkered past is Adam Tatum. Sensing a trap, Tatum flees with his family, desperately fighting for survival in an unfamiliar country. The lives of his children, the future of his marriage, and the fate of a nation depend on Tatum exposing the conspirators who pegged him for a fall. Georgia Turnbull, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Davina Steel, the lead investigator, each stand to gain from the successful manhunt of Adam Tatum. But, as motives emerge and desires ignite, each must decide what they're really after. Layered plots, crackling dialogue, and propulsive action make Keep Calm a riveting debut thriller. Mike Binder is an award-winning director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. His latest film is Black or White, starring Kevin Costner. Keep Calm is his first novel. www.thegernertco.com 4 David Coventry, THE INVISIBLE MILE An astonishingly assured work of literature about war, memory, family, and sport as metaphor. Literary fiction Publisher: Victoria University Press (New Zealand), June 2015 Editor: Fergus Barrowman Agent: Andy Kifer Material: Finished books #2 bestseller in the author’s native New Zealand • Dutch pre-empt • UK & BC rights to Paul Baggaley of Picador in a two-book deal, at auction • “A truly extraordinary first novel.” --NZ Listener • “The Invisible Mile is an important and impressive debut.” --Sunday Star Times The 1928 Ravat-Wonder team from New Zealand and Australia were the first English-speaking team to ride the Tour de France. From June through July they faced one of toughest in the race’s history: 5,476 kilometres of unsealed roads on heavy, fixed-wheel bikes. They rode in darkness through mountains with no light and brakes like glass. They weren’t expected to finish, but stadiums filled with Frenchmen eager to call their names. The Invisible Mile is a powerful re-imagining of the tour from inside the peloton, where the test of endurance, for one young New Zealander, becomes a psychological journey into the chaos of the war a decade earlier. Riding on the alternating highs of cocaine and opium, victory and defeat, the rider’s mind is increasingly fixed on his encounter with his family’s past. As he nears the battlefields of the north and his last, invisible mile, the trauma of exertion and disputed guilt cast strange shadows on his story, and onlookers congregate about him waiting for revelation. David Coventry was born in 1969. He lives in Wellington, New Zealand with his partner and cat. The Invisible Mile is his first book. • Sold to: Picador (UK & BC), Atlas Contact (The Netherlands), Yediot (Israel) www.thegernertco.com 5 Jason Gurley, ELEANOR A heartrending, fantastical novel about identical twins and the tragedy that threatens to tear their family apart. Imaginative literary fiction Publisher: Crown, January 12, 2016 Editor: Hilary Teeman Agent: Seth Fishman Material: Advanced Readers Copy Strong six-figure pre-empts in both the US and the UK • Lead Title • "Jason Gurley will be a household name one day." – Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of Wool • ““Eleanor is deep — a really poignant, moving story that will surprise you with how smart it is. The novel turns a traditional tragic narrative on its head with compelling elements of science fiction and fantasy. Read it and weep.” – Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse Eleanor and Esmerelda are identical twins with a secret language all their own, inseparable until a terrible accident claims Esme’s life. Eleanor’s family is left in tatters: her mother retreats inward, seeking comfort in bottles; her father reluctantly abandons ship. Eleanor is forced to grow up more quickly than a child should, and becomes the target of her mother’s growing rage. Years pass, and Eleanor’s painful reality begins to unravel in strange ways. The first time it happens, she walks through a school doorway, and finds herself in a cornfield, beneath wide blue skies. When she stumbles back into her own world, time has flown by without her. Again and again, against her will, she falls out of her world and into other, stranger ones, leaving behind empty rooms and worried loved ones. One fateful day, Eleanor leaps from a cliff and is torn from her world altogether. She meets a mysterious stranger, Mea, who reveals to Eleanor the weight of her family’s loss. To save her broken parents, and rescue herself, Eleanor must learn how deep the well of her mother’s grief and her father’s heartbreak truly goes. Esmerelda’s death was not the only tragic loss in her family’s fragmented history, and unless Eleanor can master her strange new abilities, it may not be the last.