The Cleaner by Mark Dawson in Hardcover For the First Time
The Mark Dawson John Milton series, featuring the popular British ex-assassin, comes for the first time in hardcover. And the cover is shiny, clever, and really, really beautiful.
John Milton has been often described as the British Jack Reacher, which is quite curious because Lee Child is also a British author, albeit his Jack Reacher is an American hero.
Milton is the one main asset, the main assassin the British government has kept hidden and ready for action when they need a special kind of problem solved. Except Milton wants out. So he does the only thing he can: he goes into hiding. And from here starts Milton’s new career, as it were, of helping those in need. Just like Jack Reacher’s path took him in life.
The author’s new publisher, Welbeck Publishing, is relatively new. Initially, it started out as the London based Carlton Publishing Books, which was founded by Jonathan Goodman in 1992, focusing on releasing illustrated reference, biography, leisure and entertainment books. In 2019, the company was bought by Mark Smith and Marcus Leaver, who established Welbeck Publishing, focusing on illustrated non-fiction and children’s books for the co-edition market alongside commercial fiction and non-fiction.
Mark Smith once worked at Quercus as its CEO, and then was the CEO of the Bonnier’s Zaffre division, while Marcus Leaver was the CEO of The Quarto Group. The two professionals joined forces to create Welbeck, and Jonathan Goodman stayed on in the new organization as well.
The Cleaner by Mark Dawson is the publishing house’s first fiction title, and given the elegance and appeal of this cover, I am confident it will not be their last. The publisher deal with Mark Dawson is for print-only titles, thus they are not taking over the eBook or audiobook editions, which were so far the only released formats for the John Milton series, the Beatrix Rose series, and the Isabella Rose series. The publisher of these releases was called Unputdownable, founded by Mark Dawson himself.
While the series has sold already extremely well, there are undoubtedly people who prefer reading print books. This new release allow new readers to get their hands on the John Milton books as well.
