Agent and editor Kate Jones died 1 February 2008 in London, England. Born in Tilbury, Essex, on 11 July 1961, of advanced liver cancer.
Her first job was as an assistant at the Tessa Sayle Literary Agency, and then she moved on Macmillan. In 1990, Hamish Hamilton hired her as an editor, where she worked mostly on crime fiction with authors including Sarah Dunant, Janet Evanovich, and Sara Paretsky.
In 1997, while recovering from breast cancer, she took time off from the literary world to manage the Parliamentary campaign of Martin Bell, one of her authors, who won an upset election in Tatton. The following year, she returned to Penguin, where she was named Editorial Director of Viking Press.
Jones left Viking for Ian Fleming Publications, to run the James Bond estate. She was responsible for moving the books to Penguin, re-invigorating the series, and creating spin-offs such as the “young Bond” series. Penguin is about to publish Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulk, a new James Bond novel with an expected first print run of 250,000 copies.
In 2003, Jones and Margaret Halton set up the London office of ICM, the international artistic agency. In this newest role, she sold Cherie Blair’s memoir to Little, Brown.
She is survived by her husband, John Tackaberry, and their daughter, Molly.
London’s Independent has a wonderful obituary at this link.