BUYING TIME Knopf, which lost Michael Crichton to HarperCollins in February, has been hit with another major defection: legal thriller writer Richard North Patterson, who just struck a two book, seven figure deal with Ballantine. ''It's been a marvelous run with [Patterson], but he has wanted to get back to his original publisher in both hardcover and paperback, and we respect that,'' says Knopf spokesman William Loverd.
Elmore Leonard will also have a new home. The cult crime writer has left Delacorte for the William Morrow division of HarperCollins, which will publish not only his next three hardcovers -- beginning next February with ''Tishomingo Blues'' (love those crazy titles, Dutch) -- but also the master's entire 36 title backlist.
And speaking of Elmore Leonard, legendary blaxploitation siren Pam Grier -- who played Jackie Brown in Quentin Tarantino's adaptation of Leonard's ''Rum Punch'' -- is shopping her autobiography.
And hit man Phil Ramone -- possibly the only record producer to have worked with both Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand -- will spill his producing secrets in the tentatively titled ''Making Records,'' just acquired by Hyperion. ''It's not going to be a straightforward memoir,'' says senior editor Maureen O'Brien. ''It's going to be the pope of pop taking you behind the closed doors of where hit records have been made.''
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