Let’s see. It’s 2001, you’re a big corporation and the moment JK Rowling dies you can make a Harry Potter movie or print Harry Potter books. You’re an aggrieved academic convinced that fortune and fame await if you publish an annotated Ulysses. A hit man costs $15k en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrac...

There are too many rude pedants on this thread who have yet to spell out their own great insights, only what they gleaned from someone else's work and none seem to have a sense of humor (or irony). Too many look for any excuse to dunk and it's a waste of time that goes nowhere.

Good timing now reading Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. Very plausible scenario.

I am willing to believe that a hit man costs $15K if, but only if you buy in bulk. If you buy retail a hit man costs a 25 year prison sentence - and they don't even do the killing. A total rip-off! The problem of hiring a good murderer is less the cost than it is finding one. Needs a relationship.

Are you saying all I need is a time machine and 15k dollars to save the world a LOT of trouble?

Right. I don't think Mr. Gaiman is implying it'd be open season on authors, but with the right incentive, like once-in-a-lifetime successes, it's not unfeasible. Hell, in the HP example, it's entirely possible a rival publisher would put out the hit, like a corporate job. Michael Clayton type stuff

It delights me that you know this. That’s probably bed.

This was a Halloween Simpsons plot to use celebrity likenesses in commercials. And The Simpsons has predicted a lot of things over the years...

A hit man SAYS they only cost $15k but that’s because they’re all FBI agents, who are famously cheap.

If demented Grandma in the hospital holds copyright to dozens of unpublished works in the universe she made millions off of, but she had good lawyers keeping your hands off her stuff while she's alive... who needs a hit man? Grandma, I made you almond cookies!

Again, let me just point out that Joyce has been in the public domain since 1 January 2012. If, on the other hand, you wished to do an annotated Third Policeman, itself a novel about murder committed for literary motives, that'd be a different thing entirely.