and yet more publishing deals!

More snippets from The Bookseller Daily at Frankfurt:

Italian bestseller goes to America
Old Street Publishing has sold North American rights for The Past is a Foreign Country by anti-Mafia prosecutor/detective novelist Gianrico Carofiglio. The psychological thriller "in the tradition of Patricia Highsmith" was a bestseller in Carofiglio’s native Italy. Old Street, which holds world English rights, sold to Marcia Markland at New York’s Thomas Dunne Books for hardcover publication.

Accent has heart for eight-book deal
Wales-based independent Accent Press has snapped up eight books in Nicholas Rhea's Constable detective series—the basis for UK TV's popular "Heartbeat" series. Accent m.d. Hazel Cushion sewed up the five-figure UK and Commonwealth paperback deal with Tim Bates at Pollinger.

Accent has also agreed to a deal conducted by Lesley Pollinger with Yorkshire Television, which produces the programme, to jacket all the books with "Heartbeat" pictures and branding. The titles will be rolled out between June and December 2008, in time for the 18th series, which airs in the autumn. All the titles will be paperback originals.

Set in the fictional Yorkshire village of Aidensfield in the late 1960s, "Heartbeat" is one of ITV’s most popular programmes, and attracts up to 16 million viewers. Rhea has written 25 books for the Constable series and is a consultant on the ITV show. The series was previously published by Headline. Cushion said: "'Heartbeat' remains popular because it taps into the interest that is out there for nostalgia. It is a major purchase for us. Accent has only been going for four years and to get an acquisition like this is very exciting."