Chapter Twenty-Four
PUB DAILY
BELEAGUERED PUBLISHER EMbrOILED IN SECOND SCANDAL
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Things have gone from bad to worse for Pacific Northwest–based publisher Simon Says as they find themselves the center of yet another sensational news story.
Amid rumors of poor management, lagging sales, delayed author contracts, and imminent bankruptcy, the publisher was allegedly set to make a splashy announcement of a highly anticipated acquisition in the form of a tell-all memoir by local business magnate Warren Ellingham of the Ellingham Group.
The untimely death of Ellingham and the supposed theft of said manuscript, however, derailed their plans.
There were those among the staff at Simon Says who claimed evidence of foul play.
The police, however, have ruled natural causes and written off those claims as nothing more than conspiracy theory.
Now it seems those conspiracy theorists have had their day in the sun, because only a few weeks after the elder Ellingham’s death, his son, Bradley Ellingham, has met his own untimely demise.
And there can be no doubt that foul play was involved, as the junior Ellingham was found murdered at his father’s country club, the ultraexclusive Pacific Pines.
Police are still investigating the circumstances, but our sources say their primary suspect is none other than Simon Says marketing director Juliette Winters.
Winters, who was rumored to have helmed the memoir deal with Warren Ellingham, made waves last year when she was involved in a different murder investigation at the wedding of society darling Kennedy Hempstead (also an employee at Simon Says).
A quick look at BookScan, the industry resource for tracking book sales, shows that sales have ticked up slightly on notable Simon Says titles. Will it be enough to save the publisher from ruin? We’ll keep our eyes on the news.