Indicted Libby's Publishers Plan 25,000 Reprint of 'steamy' Novel

Life is not all bad for Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice-president's former chief of staff. He has been indicted for perjury but the scandal has done wonders for sales of a steamy novel he wrote a decade ago.

The Apprentice, an everyday tale of bestiality and paedophilia in 1903 Japan, is to be reprinted after the author's newfound notoriety triggered a stampede for secondhand editions.

Amazon.com was advertising copies for $50 (£29) to $2,400 (£1,370) for uncorrected page proofs with an inscription by Mr Libby to somebody named Bob. Now Thomas Dunne Books is planning to cash in with a reprint run of 25,000.

"They have every right to do it. If I was a publisher and I had an order for 25,000, that's what I'd do," Amanda Urban, Mr Libby's literary agent, told the Guardian. She said she did not know what Mr Libby thought about the resurrection of his novel, first published in 1996.

Sales of the new edition will swell the fund Mr Libby's supporters have set up to pay his legal costs. But the publicity it provides might not provide the ideal backdrop to a trial.

The Apprentice is packed with sexual perversion, dwelling on prepubescent girls and their training as prostitutes.

One passage describes a girl being thrown into a cage "with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons".

"They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest. Groups of men paid to watch."

They are still willing to pay, if sales of The Apprentice are anything to go by.