Michael Crichton, the best-selling author of mega-thrillers such as Jurassic Park, died of of cancer last November. His publisher has since revealed that Crichton left behind at least one finished novel and more than half of a second.

HarperCollins, Crichton's publisher for his previous three books, will release Pirate Latitudes - an adventure story set in 17th century Jamaica - on November 24. The company also plans to publish a technological thriller in 2010, a novel that Crichton was working on at the time of his death.

The new novel, discovered by Crichton's assistant in the writer's computer files after his death, features a pirate named Hunter and the governor of Jamaica, and their plan to raid a Spanish treasure galleon.

Well researched

"It's eminently and deeply and thoroughly researched," Burnham said. "It's packed through with great detail about navigation and how pirates operated, and links between the New World and the Caribbean and Spain."

The novel represents a departure from Crichton's long-time fictional preoccupation with the moral and social ramifications of science and technology. But Burnham pointed out that Pirate Latitudes also harks back to the kind of historical yarn that Crichton wrote in the The Great Train Robbery, first published in 1975.

Burnham said that the book needed little editing and that Harper planned a first printing of one million copies.

- Extract from an article by Motoko Rich