The CrimeReads editors make their selections for the month’s best debut novels in crime, mystery, and thrillers.
Monika Kim, The Eyes are the Best Part
(Erewhon Books)
In this darkly funny psychological horror, a college student must protect her mother and her sister from her mother’s creepy new boyfriend. Like all the other men in their lives, he’s trying to reduce their humanness into stereotypes about doll-like, submissive Asian women, and Kim’s protagonist is certainly not going to let him get away with it. She’s also spending a lot of time having intense dreams about eating bright blue eyes, standing over her sleeping enemies and fantasizing their demise, and generally losing touch with reality in a way that pays plenty of dividends by the novel’s end.
Ram Murali, Death in the Air
(Harper)
This locked-room mystery/comedy of manners takes place at a high-end spa with an exclusive clientele. When one of the resort’s patrons turns up dead, a visiting lawyer is recruited to investigate the murder (in between treatments, of course). Murali’s sly, knowing, and affectionate take on the foibles of the international jet set is as charming as it is compelling.
Henry Wise, Holy City
(Atlantic Monthly Press)
Look out for Holy City, a debut novel of immense power. When a Black man is killed in a small Southern Virginia town, and an innocent man is arrested for the crime, two people who prefer to work alone find themselves working together to solve it. Bennico is a private detective who has been hired by the local Black community, after the sheriff’s department won’t do anything to investigate. Will is the deputy sheriff, and is angry that he’s told to stand down, especially because the crime is highly personal; the murdered man is Tom Janders, a Black neighbor and Will’s old friend, who once protected Will and suffered because of it.—Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads editor
Alejandro Nodarse, Blood in the Cut
(Flatiron)
In Nodarse’s assured debut, a young man at a crossroads tries to save his family’s butcher shop against pressures from all sides. Nodarse conjures up a captivating vision of life in Miami, with shady operators around every corner and family legacies in peril. Nodarse is a writer of great promise, and readers will be clamoring for a follow-up.–Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads editor-in-chief
Leslie Stephens, You’re Safe Here
(Gallery/Scout Press)
In this futuristic wellness thriller, a secretive Silicon Valley company has just launched the first wave of wellness “pods”—self-sustaining bubbles in which the wealthy and privileged can find inner peace while drifting along an ocean belt known for its stable weather and lack of storms. The pods are rumored to have major design flaws, and the two powerful figures at the center of the company are in a contest of will to determine who bears the blame for any disasters. One of the company’s best workers is drawn into the intrigue brewing between founders as she desperately races to save her fiancee, encased in one of the pods, from a looming storm threatening the pod’s integrity. Chockfull of warnings about tech gone awry (and also lots of tech that I would frankly love to have in my life).
Tasha Coryell, Love Letters to a Serial Killer
(Berkley)
Would you strike up a romance with a potential murderer if he took your book recommendations? In this knowing critique of true crime culture and modern love, a woman begins a romance with a suspected serial killer and becomes obsessed with finding out the truth about her new paramour. I sped through this novel and related to many of its uncomfortable truths about the misogyny within ordinary relationships that makes dating a man accused of horrible crimes who treats you well seem…justifiable? Or at least, rather understandable…
Olivia Muenter, Such a Bad Influence
(Quirk)
Muenter’s Such a Bad Influence is a nasty little gem of a novel with a perfectly shocking twist. Hazel Davis is the underachieving sister of a social media star; when her influencer sibling vanishes in the middle of a live video, Hazel investigates the disappearance, but her quest for her beloved younger sister will lead her to a far darker place than she could have ever predicted. Muenter’s debut is wickedly clever and incredibly self-assured; I can’t wait to see what she does next.
