The President Is Missing will see the former US leader make his prose fiction debut in collaboration with his golf partner the crime writing mega-seller

In one of the most unexpected literary collaborations to date, former US president Bill Clinton is to publish a novel with bestselling crime writer James Patterson. Titled The President Is Missing, the novel is being billed as a “unique amalgam of intrigue, suspense and behind-the-scenes global drama from the highest corridors of power”.

Though publisher and writer were keeping tight-lipped about the advance paid for the novel, it is thought to have gone for a significant seven-figure sum. In 2004, Clinton was rumoured to have been paid a then record-breaking $16m (£12m) advance for his memoirs.



The novel, which will appear in June 2018, will draw on details that “only a president can know”, said publisher Penguin Random House. In a statement released through his publisher, Clinton, who left office in 2001, said: “Working on a book about a sitting president – drawing on what I know about the job, life in the White House, and the way Washington works – has been a lot of fun.” He described working with Patterson, who is as famous for collaborating on books as he is for individual bestsellers, as “terrific”. “I’ve been a fan of his for a very long time.”

Patterson said that the collaboration had given him access to firsthand experience of the Oval Office, which had “uniquely informed” the book. “I’m a storyteller, and President Clinton’s insight has allowed us to tell a really interesting one,” he said. “It’s a rare combination – readers will be drawn to the suspense, of course, but they’ll also be given an inside look into what it’s really like to be president.”

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Clinton, a keen reader of thrillers and mysteries, has known Patterson for 10 years, during which time they have become golf partners. They came up with the idea for the novel after the lawyer they both retain suggested they work together. They started working on the book in late 2016, and though details of the plot are being held back until publication, a source told the Guardian it would involve a sitting US president being kidnapped.

In an unusual move, the book is being jointly published in the US by Clinton’s publisher Knopf and Patterson’s US publisher Little, Brown. In the UK, both men are published by Penguin Random House, which will release the novel under its Century imprint.

Patterson has built a reputation as a fiction factory thanks to his extensive collaborations on books, which have also made him one of the most prolific authors in the world. This will be Clinton’s first venture into fiction, but expectations are high after his 2004 memoir My Life became a global bestseller, selling in excess of 2m copies in the US alone.

Announcing the deal in the UK, Susan Sandon, PRH divisional managing director, said: “This unprecedented collaboration, with its compelling mix of insider knowledge and edge-of-the-seat suspense, is utterly irresistible.”

The book’s joint US publishers Sonny Mehta and Michael Pietsch added: “The pages we’ve read to date are riveting, full of intricate plotting and detail. This is a book that promises to entertain and delight millions of readers around the world, and we are thrilled to be working on it together.”