Breaking into the crime game isn’t easy, but every month, a few brave and talented souls make a go of it. For readers, there are few experiences so thrilling as finding a new author whose career is just beginning and whose work promises years of enjoyment to come. But it’s sometimes hard to find those debuts. That’s where we come in. We’re scouring the shelves in search of auspicious debuts and recommending the very best for your reading pleasure.
Luke Arnold, The Last Smile in Sunder City (Orbit)
I first came to know Luke Arnold through his brilliant performance as the young John Silver in Black Sails, whom he played to sleazy perfection, and now, apparently, he has a debut novel, which is very exciting to me as a fan but also looks, like, really good. In a fantastical dystopia, magic has been frozen, and bankrupt wizards and critters are trying to discover the reasons behind their predicament. In the factory town of Sunder City, a prominent member of the community (who happens to be an age-old vampire), goes missing, and the detective on his trail may discover far more than the location of his target. This makes me think of The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, which means that I cannot wait to read it.—Molly Odintz, CrimeReads senior editor
Andrew Hunter Murray, The Last Day (Dutton)
Also in dystopian debut news, Andrew Hunter Murray’s The Last Day promises to be a fantastic scifi thriller. In a world where the earth’s rotation has stopped, and the globe is split between boiling and freezing, it’s up to a lone scientist to figure out what’s going on. If you’ve ever wanted to read a history of Tatooine written by a comedian (and as a fan of the Star Wars universe, I always have), then this one’s for you!—MO
Melissa Anne Peterson, Vera Violet (Counterpoint)
You know all of those articles about the beauty and the idyllic settings of the Pacific Northwest? If you are into that kind of thing, this is not the book for you. Rather, Peterson chronicles a group of friends in a dead-end logging town. Vera Violet is trying to make a better life for herself, but between the poverty and the drugs all around her she’s struggling. Self-improvement might be easier, she reasons, in a new place, so she takes off for St. Louis, Missouri. But the past follows closely, threatening to ruin any kind of better life she can establish for herself.—LL
Heather Chavez, No Bad Deed (William Morrow)
Like many a great crime novel, No Bad Deed asks an elemental question, the answer to which none of us can ever really know (until tested): would you help a stranger in need? And how long would you keep helping that stranger, if the act of assistance puts you in danger as well? As Chavez’s novel opens, an ordinary woman leaps to defend another woman being attacked on the side of the road. The attacker delivers a chilling promise: either let his intended victim go, or become a target herself.—MO
Tessa Wegert, Death in the Family (Berkley)
After a brutal attack by a serial killer, a former NYPD detective heads upstate to recover—but as we all know, going to a seemingly peaceful remote area never goes well. Wegert’s debut promises to be compellingly written and chock-full of atmosphere.—MO
Deepa Anappara, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (Random House)
In this wildly creative debut, 9-year-old Jai lives at the end of the Purple Line, far from the high-rises where his mother commutes each day to clean the messes of the wealthy. When a classmate goes missing, Jai and his friends use the detecting skills gleaned from TV shows to find the wayward student, for a novel that promises to be both hard-boiled and dazzling. Also I wish I had the chops as a 9-year-old to attempt to solve a crime. Or commit one. I was really boring when I was 9.—MO
Marian Womack, The Golden Key (Titan Books)
This debut is part suspense novel, part folk tale, as an investigator heads to the mysterious Fens in England to track down the missing daughters of a moneyed aristocrat, where magic and folk tales are not of the past, but have lingered into the present…This one should please fans of the gothic revival and supernatural thrillers!—MO
