Posthumous Crichton Novels Announced

According to recent announcements, the late Michael Crichton left behind a finished pirate novel and a partial techno-thriller novel, and HarperCollins plans to publish them. The completed work is a departure from his usual science-based fare; Pirate Latitudes is an adventure story set in Jamica in the 17th century. According to Jonathan Burnham, Harper publisher, "it's packed through with great detail about navigation and how pirates operated, and links between the New World and the Caribbean and Spain," adding that HarperCollins plans a print run of one million copies in the US, to be released on November 24, 2009. The publisher also said they intend to work with Crichton's agent Lynn Nesbit and the Crichton estate to choose a co-writer to finish the other work, the sequel to Next.