Domino Island – A lost Bagley thriller to be published

A lost thriller novel by Desmond Bagley, Domino Island, will be published by HarperCollins on 9th May 2019 [originally scheduled for publication on 16th May 2019]. The publishing house released the news today during the Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurter Buchmesse), which is in its 70th anniversary year.

Domino Island, which had a working title of ‘Because Salton Died’, together with related correspondence, recently came to light among the author’s papers held at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center in Boston, USA.

The full-length thriller, involving murder and corruption on a Caribbean island before a plot twist leads to an all-action finale, was completed by Bagley and scheduled for publication in the autumn of 1972, but was shelved to avoid a clash with the release of The Mackintosh Man, the Paul Newman movie based on Bagley’s earlier novel The Freedom Trap. The typescript was returned to Bagley and thought lost.

David Brawn, Publisher of Estates at HarperCollins, said:

It’s fairly well known that Bagley would start a novel and abandon it if he felt that it wasn’t working, and in fact his wife Joan completed the last two books, Night of Error and Juggernaut, after his tragically early death, aged 59. But finding a full-length, fully-formed book more than 40 years later was beyond our wildest expectations. And, my goodness, what a thrill to read an original Bagley, written at the height of his powers when his books commanded millions of sales. Domino Island is a long overdue reminder of just how good and exciting his writing really was.

The publication of the book has been negotiated with Moore Stephens, Bagley’s trustees in Guernsey, who, together with David Brawn have been incredibly supportive of aspects relating to The Bagley Legacy project. Their continued interest and foresight will help ensure that Desmond Bagley’s novels remain in the public eye and may perhaps even find a new generation of readers.

Read in more detail about the life of Desmond Bagley here. Further updates on Domino Island will be published prior to publication here on The Bagley Brief and also on Nigel Alefounder’s Desmond Bagley website and Facebook page.

HarperCollins Publishers have a pre-order link for the novel here.

Update: 9th May 2019