Earlier this month, Grand Central signed a new contract for one of its bestsellers, Robert Ludlum. The deal was for two more thrillers featuring the amnesiac hit man Jason Bourne, as well as two books with the retired government operative introduced in the 2002 bestseller, The Janson Directive.That the Ludlum brand is nearly as strong today as when he was alive is more than a stroke of good luck (and Hollywood intervention). Ludlum’s agent, Henry Morrison (who represents the author’s estate), said he had numerous talks with the author about ways to rely on more than just backlist after Ludlum was gone. (Ludlum died in 2001, but had had major heart surgery in the early 1990s, and that’s when, Morrison said, conversations about a posthumous publishing plan began.)

The first prong of the plan was to ensure there were new novels from Ludlum after he died. To that end, Ludlum wrote a handful of manuscripts that Morrison said “he didn’t really polish,” with the intention that they would be edited and released after he died. One of them became The (more…)