Bill Clinton, the former US President, is set to publish a new political thriller, co-written by novelist James Patterson, with the pair already selling the rights to The President is Missing to Hollywood.
The book is Clinton’s fourth to be published since he left the Oval Office in 2001, but marks the Democrat’s first foray into fiction writing.
James Patterson is a best-selling author, best known for his ‘Alex Cross’ series about a detective and psychologist working for the Detroit Police Department. Five of Patterson’s novels have already been brought to the big screen. A further eight of his stories have been adapted for the small screen, and the famous movie buff is currently developing a new show with CBS.
Clinton and Patterson will publish The President is Missing in June 2018, with a book and press tour already planned.
The plot of their novel remains a hotly kept secret, but a press release issues by publishers Alfred A. Knopf and Little, Brown & Co promised a pulpy page-turner with “insider details that only a president can know.”
“Drawing on what I know about the job, life in the White House and the way Washington works has been a lot of fun,” Clinton said.
The bookworm President
The 42nd POTUS is a well-known avid reader of thrillers and potboilers; during his 1992 run for the Oval Office, several news reports outlined how reading was how the former Arkansas Governor relaxed, splitting his material evenly between political issues and detective novels.
Throughout his political career, he was often pictured carrying thrillers as he left planes and helicopters, including a Sara Paretsky novel as he disembarked when arriving for the Illinois Primary and a James Patterson’s When the Wind Blows as he got off Marine One while President. Patterson has since said that he has a framed photo of that image in his office.
Furthermore, days after his electoral success in November 1992, the Washington Post ran a story on the then President-elect’s reported desire to get his hands on the CIA’s mythical library of every thriller and crime novel ever published in the United States.
Clinton and Patterson, friends for more than a decade, first came up with the idea for their novel in late 2016, after Hillary Clinton lost out to Donald Trump in last year’s gruelling election. Whether the story, which revolves around a US President who has gone missing in suspicious circumstances, involves a female POTUS remains to be seen.
