HarperCollins acquires Kári Gíslason’s “To Catch a Fox”

HarperCollins has acquired ANZ rights to Kári Gíslason’s new crime novel, To Catch a Fox, in a deal brokered by Grace Heifetz at a4 Literary.

Described by the publisher as a “slow burn, compelling and vividly authentic cold case crime novel”, To Catch a Fox follows Haukur, who, as a boy growing up in a remote Icelandic fjord in 1985, discovers the body of a young man hidden beneath a pile of hay. Decades later, after a career as an investigative journalist, he returns to the close-knit community to “try to solve a long-buried mystery – and finally lay the past to rest”.

Inspired by Gíslason’s own experiences working on a remote Icelandic farm as a boy, and partly based on an ancient saga, the novel is described as immersive, atmospheric crime fiction.

Publisher Catherine Milne said, “I have a real weakness for Scandi crime, as do so many others, so when I heard that Kári Gíslason, the famed storyteller and co-author of the bestselling Saga Land, as well as the podcast Viking Lives with Richard Fidler, had written a cold case Scandi crime, I could not jump on it fast enough. Tense, twisty and taut, my prediction is that readers will come to know and love Haukur as much as they do Kurt Wallander or Saga Norén.”

Gíslason said, “I’m thrilled to be working with Catherine Milne and the team at HarperCollins, especially after such a wonderful experience with Saga Land. This new book is a pretty major change for me in genre and form, but at the same time it expresses my enduring love for Icelandic characters and stories, and for the deep mysteries of the landscape.”

Gíslason is a writer and academic who teaches creative writing and literary studies at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He is the author of various titles published by University of Queensland Press, including The Promise of Iceland (2011), The Ash Burner (2015), The Sorrow Stone (2022) and the memoir Running with Pirates (2024).

HarperCollins plans to publish To Catch a Fox in August 2027.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions