The New York Times is reporting the discovery of a completed novel and a partial novel by the late Michael Crichton. According to the Times, Crichton’s assistant was going through his computer files after the author’s death when he discovered Pirate Latitudes and an untitled technological thriller. The latter was apparently to be the second book in his current two-book contract; the former seems to have been written at the same time as his last published novel, Next.
HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham (who had published Crichton’s recent novels), said Pirate Latitudes features a pirate named Hunter and the governor of Jamaica, and their plan to raid a Spanish treasure galleon. “It’s eminently and deeply and thoroughly researched. It’s packed through with great detail about navigation and how pirates operated, and links between the New World and the Caribbean and Spain.” Burnham said the book required little editing, and that Harper plans to publish it on 24 November, with a first printing of one million copies.
The partial manuscript will be finished once Harper, Crichton’s agent Lynn Nesbit, and his widow, Sherri Crichton chose a co-writer. “We want a high-level thriller writer, somebody who understands Michael’s work,” Burnham said. “From what I gather, there are notes and indications of which direction the novel was going, so the writer has material to work from apart from the actual material that was finished.”
The Times reports that Next sold 500,000-800,000 copies. The book “explored the ethical dilemmas posed by the expanding field of genetics.”
Pirate Latitudes and the untitled novel may not be the last Crichton works to emerge. Nesbit said that Crichton left “many, many electronic files,” among which there might well be more novels or unfinished material. “We haven’t begun to really go through it all,” she said.
Burnham said, however, that HarperCollins has no plans to turn Crichton into a ghost-written franchise.
As we reported earlier, Crichton died last November at the age of 66.