NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� The bestselling author team of Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray has a new novel in the works, while celebrating a milestone for its best-known publication, 鈥淭he Personal Librarian.鈥�
Benedict and Murray are writing a historical thriller set in 1930s New York, featuring such real-life characters as the gangster Lucky Luciano and the Black assistant district attorney Eunice Hunton Carter and the 鈥渘otorious madam鈥� who 鈥渇orge a bold and unlikely alliance.鈥� The book is currently untitled, and no release date has been set.
鈥淭ogether, they navigate the treacherous underworld of corruption and vice to bring down the New York City crime syndicate,鈥� the authors said in a statement released Monday through Berkley, a Penguin Random House imprint.
Meanwhile, 鈥淭he Personal Librarian鈥� has now sold 1 million copies, Berkley announced. Published in 2021, the novel tells the story of J.P. Morgan's personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, a Black woman who secretly passed for white. She is currently featured in an exhibition at Manhattan's Morgan Library, 鈥淏elle da Costa Greene: A Librarian鈥檚 Legacy.鈥�
Benedict and Murray have also collaborated on a bestseller from 2023, 鈥淭he First Ladies,鈥� about the friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. The authors each have published numerous books on their own.
Hillel Italie, The Associated Press
