Chris
Pavone's Thriller 'The Accident,' Set in Book World
Chris Pavone, the author of the forthcoming novel
"The Accident," went in a different, somewhat dubious direction: He
chose the book business.
In "The Accident," which will be released on
Tuesday by Crown Publishers, Mr. Pavone has fashioned a meticulously plotted
thriller following a New York literary agent, Isabel Reed, who is slipped a
manuscript with damning revelations about a real-life media mogul. After
receiving the manuscript, Ms. Reed tries to flee her agency and the unknown
villains who are following her.
"Any setting can be a good
setting for a novel," Mr. Pavone said, sitting on a plush, cocoa-colored
sofa in his Greenwich Village living room, shrugging off the suggestion that
the industry is too cerebral, too dominated by meetings, too absorbed by reading
manuscripts and filling out profit-and-loss reports to make riveting fiction.
Chris Pavone Credit Chester Higgins Jr.-The New York Times
Mr. Pavone (pronounced puh-VOH-nee), who is 45, is not
the typical suspense writer who speedily produces a book or two each year. But
he does bring an unusual résumé to the task of making the publishing industry
seem thrilling: He spent decades working as an editor, primarily at Clarkson
Potter, an illustrated-book publisher, where he worked on nonfiction titles
about interior design, dogs, cocktails and food, among other things. His first
novel, "The Expats," was published in 2012 and sold nearly 200,000
copies, winning critical raves and an Edgar Award.
He is also half of a formidable publishing power couple.
His wife, Madeline McIntosh, is the president and chief operating officer at
Penguin Random House and one of the industry's most influential executives,
often mentioned as a potential successor someday to Markus Dohle, the company's
chief executive.
It was Ms. McIntosh's ascending career that indirectly
led Mr. Pavone to start writing fiction in the first place. In 2008, she took a
high-level job at Amazon that required the couple and their twin sons, 4 years
old at the time, to move to Luxembourg, where Amazon has corporate offices.
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