Was it really? Have you got sales figures to support that statement?
The 14 R&J choices that feature in the chart account for 22%, or £25.4m, of revenue in the Hot 100, based on BookScan’s Total Consumer Market data.</p>
<p>Industry cynics have claimed that the book battle in 2007 was little more than a duel between J K Rowling and R&J producer Amanda Ross. Indeed, sales of <i>Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows</i> (worth £36.5m) and sales of all editions of all 16 R&J picks (worth £26.8m) combined to take 3.5%, or £63.3m, of total sales in 2007.<br />
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<b>The interpretation of data</b></p>
<p>It is R&J’s Book of the Year that sits atop the 2007 paperback bestseller chart. Jed Rubenfeld’s <i>The Interpretation of Murder</i> (Headline) clinches the top spot in a repeat of last year, when the show’s chosen Book of the Year, <i>Labyrinth</i> by Kate Mosse, came out on top. Rubenfeld’s total sales figure is 45,000 copies short of the lofty height gained by Mosse in 2006. The 2005 winner, <i>Cloud Atlas</i> by David Mitchell, sold fewer than 300,000 copies in its mass market edition.</p>
http://www.thebookseller.com/feature/review-2007-paperbacks-ride-highIt would appear to have sold reasonably well in 2007 and would probably have made for good holiday reading. Why possession of it should be the cause for any suspicion is way beyond me.
However the fact that the senior investigating officer found difficulty in differentiating between top secret police pamphlets unavailable to the general public and a conference handout is indicative of the sort of rubbish he circulated at the time.
Not even the Bible was exempt from wild speculation ... the 'highly suspicious' marked reading belonged not to Kate but to the mother who had lent the Bible to comfort her.
Such is the power of anti McCann baseless propaganda that the innuendo and insinuation persists to raise its head using the title of a best selling book. Seamlessly progressing into 'questions' in some quarters (not this forum) about police interest in communication between Sir Clement Freud and Madeleine's parents.
The pity of which is that the universally accepted damning accusations were made only after the death of Clement Freud when he was way beyond defending himself or being accountable for his activities, contacts or correspondence.