Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: ICM Partners has bagged a big one. The agency’s publishing department has signed Nelson DeMille, the author of 15 bestselling novels. He was repped forever by Nick Ellison, but I’m told they quietly parted ways awhile ago.

DeMille routinely sells millions of books with bestsellers By The Rivers Of Babylon, Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word Of Honor, The Charm School, The Gold Coast, The General’s Daughter, Spencerville, Plum Island, The Lion’s Game, Up Country, Night Fall, Wild Fire, The Gate House, and The Lion. He also co-authored Mayday with Thomas Block.

DeMille is one of those authors who has made a ton of movie option deals, only to see most of them languish in development hell. The John Travolta-starrer The General’s Daughter was the one big feature (the 1999 film grossed $143 million worldwide). His books Mayday and Word Of Honor were turned into telepics. IPG’s Joel Gotler continues to rep DeMille for features. 

Sony Pictures has rights to his most venerable series character, the NYPD detective-turned-Anti-Terrorist Task Force agent John Corey, who is the subject of his next novel, The Panther, which Grand Central Publishing releases October 16th. What I’m saying is, there is movie opportunity here for those eminently make-able backlist titles like The Gold Coast, a Sopranos-esque drama that takes place on the North Shore of Long Island. DeMille’s a good writer, though I must admit that the treatment of women in some of his books – The General’s Daughter and Spencerville are two that come to mind — left me a bit cold.