Jurassic author Michael Crichton is back from the dead

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Michael Crichton, who also wrote The Andromeda Strain, died of cancer last November aged 66.

But today executors of his estate revealed he left a treasure trove of work on his computer - including a completed historical thriller and one-third of a new science fiction novel.

Both will be released over the next 18 months. The first, an adventure story called Pirate Latitudes set in 17th-century Jamaica, will reach stores in time for Christmas.

Julia Wisdom, Crichton's UK publisher at Harper Collins, said: "Pirate Latitudes is obviously unedited, but the book is complete and it will be his own work.

"Like all of his work, he wrote it in secret. He'd have these extraordinary ideas, which he would keep under his hat before springing them on us when the manuscript was completed."

The book features a pirate named Hunter, the governor of Jamaica and their plan to raid a Spanish treasure galleon. Crichton's US publisher Jonathan Burnham said: "It's deeply and thoroughly researched. It is packed with great detail about navigation and how pirates operated, and the links between the New World and the Caribbean and Spain."

When Crichton died he was half-way through a two-book deal to write technological thrillers. The second of his newly-found works is part of one of these. Mr Burnham is seeking a co-writer to finish the project using Crichton's notes and plot outlines.

Crichton's close friend Lynn Nesbit said she was not surprised he had "secret" works in the pipeline. She said he was "the most private author I have ever met in my life".