Anne Perry, the highly popular author of mysteries set in Victorian England, has promised her next five books, all centering around a new series hero, to Ballantine executive editor Joe Blades, in a mid-seven-figure deal. The new hero, who will solve a different murder mystery in each of the five books set in five different years just before and during the First World War, is British Army chaplain Joseph Reavley, first introduced in an Edgar Award-winning story called "Heroes." The deal was negotiated with agent Donald Maass, acting on behalf of Perry's London agent, Meg Davis at MBA, who holds movie and translation rights, and is even now lining up a British sale.