Mike Fleming

Bestselling author Daniel Silva has left a long run at Putnam and made a 3-book deal at HarperCollins. I toldja that Silva left ICM to sign with D.C. attorney Robert Barnett at Williams & Connolly, in anticipation of shopping for the new deal. Silva was locked in by Harper senior vice president Jonathan Burnham and the books will be edited by executive editor Jennifer Barth. Not sure how much the deal was worth, but it is the latest in what will likely be a growing number of established authors leaving houses because those publishers are unwilling to pay the high advances their authors were accustomed to receiving. That happened with Janet Evanovich, who left St. Martin’s Press after the publisher nixed an ask for $50 million for her next four books, even though she was the house’s top fiction author. She moved to Random House’s Ballantine Bantam Dell imprint, but word in publishing circles is it was for a lot less than she originally asked.

HarperCollins confirmed the move, with Silva’s first book under the new deal to be published in summer, 2011. Silva was a journalist when he began writing novels with The Unlikely Spy. He’s best known for the popular series revolving around Gabriel Allon, an art restorer/Israeli spy. He most recently hit the bestseller lists earlier this summer with The Rembrandt Affair.