Publishing Deals - Margie Orford, Elly Griffiths

From Publishing News:

Isobel Dixon of Blake Friedmann has sold a three-book thriller series by Cape Town-based crime novelist Margie Orford to Ravi Mirchandani at Atlantic. London-born and raised in Namibia and South Africa, Orford was detained during the State of Emergency in 1985 and took her final Uni exams in prison. She studied under J M Coetzee and worked in publishing in Namibia, including the African Publishers Network. The series features journalist and part-time police profiler Dr Clare Hart. The first title, Like Clockwork, is already published in Germany with a 100,000 first print.

and

Janklow & Nesbit UK was kept busy in the run-up to LBF with a series of auctions for a bright new talent, Elly Griffiths, whose debut The Crossing Places introduces forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway and DCI Harry Nelson. UK rights have been snapped up by Jane Wood at Quercus, who is charmed by the author's “fresh and engaging writing; her quirky heroine; her wild East Anglian setting; her strong sense of history of how the past informs the present”. Dutch rights went to De Fontein, Norwegian were pre-empted by Aschehoug in sales by Rebecca Folland in London. J&N New York is handling US rights.

I'm looking forward to both these new series, especially the books set in my native (wild?) East Anglia.