Bill Clinton's thriller sees fastest fiction sales in two years

Former US President Bill Clinton’s thriller with James Patterson is flying off the shelves, selling more copies in its first week than any other fictional book in two years.

“The President is Missing” sold 250,000 copies in its first week, the book’s co-publishers, Alfred A. Knopf and Little, Brown and Co., announced Wednesday.

The numbers, which include hardcover, e-book, and audio purchases, would make Clinton’s inaugural novel the best-selling adult fiction book in its first week since Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman,” the Hill reports, citing the Associated Press. That novel, released in 2015, sold more than 700,000 hardcover copies.

Michael Pietsch, the CEO of Little Brown’s parent company, Hachette Book Group, called it a “terrific opening week of sales” that “exceeded even our own optimistic projections.”

The book by the 42nd president and the famed mystery writer is already poised to hit the small screen as a TV series, Showtime announced months before its release.

The Clinton book “confronts a threat so huge that it jeopardizes not just Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street, but all of America,” according to its publisher.

Promotion of the novel got off to a rocky start last week when Clinton made headlines after clashing with NBC’s Craig Melvin, who asked during an interview about the book whether the ex-commander in chief had ever apologized to Monica Lewinsky.