Short Takes

A former CIA and National Security Council official who is an expert on Iraq, Kenneth M. Pollack, has sold a book to Random's Jonathan Karp in which he suggests the U.S. has no alternative but to try to bring down Saddam Hussein's regime; Karp bought world rights in the unagented book, called The Threatening Storm: The United States and Saddam's Iraq, and plans to publish in November.... John Glusman at FSG bought a biography of Josiah Harlan, the American mercenary in Afghanistan in the early 19th century who was featured in Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King and the movie made from it; the author is London journalist/historian Ben Macintyre, and the North American rights buy, for publication next spring, was from agent Ed Victor .... A book by archeology professor John Hale on the Athenian navy that helped create classical Greece was bought by Viking Penguin executive editor Wendy Wolf; she bought world rights directly from the unagented author.... There was a two-book deal for a first-time author with Jackie Cantor at Bantam Dell, who paid in the low six figures for a novel called Mina, set below stairs in a stately British home in early Victorian times, and a sequel. The author is Maine-based English teacher Jonatha Ceely, whose story is about a poor Irish maid and an exiled Jewish Italian cook who decide to head for America. Agent Lane Zachary at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth sold Cantor world rights, for publication in fall 2003.... Martha Levin at the Free Press bought a book by Newsweek Mideast correspondent Joshua Hammer on the impact of the current crisis there on citizens and their everyday life; the seller of North American rights was Philippa Brophy at Sterling Lord Literistic, and publication is planned for late next year.