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Written by James Delargy — Books with numbers as a title do well on this site – 13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough and Steve Cavanagh’s…

Interview: Fran Dorricott

The clamour for diversity in fiction has never been greater, and Fran Dorricott’s debut, After the Eclipse, promises a welcome and sympathetic portrayal of queer…

Scrublands

Written by Chris Hammer — In recent years, Australia has been the setting for some of crime fiction’s best-received novels. Think of The Dry by…

Still Lives

Written by Maria Hummel — The artist Kim Lord has been the it girl of the contemporary art world since her debut show, The Flesh,…

Breathe

Written by Dominick Donald — They say something isn’t an antique until it’s 100 years old. Does the same apply to calling a novel historical?…

Interview: Christopher Huang

If you subscribe to The Rap Sheet, our weekly email newsletter, you’ll have received the first chapter of Christopher Huang’s debut novel, A Gentleman’s Murder,…

A Willing Executioner

Written by Connell Nisbet — A Nordic-inspired police procedural set in remote Australia; a debut written by an established magazine writer; an ambitious and unsettling work…

Something in the Water

Written by Catherine Steadman — She’s best known as Mabel Lane Fox in the Downton Abbey TV series, but Catherine Steadman’s debut novel couldn’t be…

Bearskin

Written by James A McLaughlin — For his debut, James A McLaughlin provides an interesting spin on rural noir, itself an increasingly popular genre. Rather than…

Where the Missing Go

Written by Emma Rowley — Cheshire schoolgirl Sophie Harlow went missing on 17 February 2017. The 16-year-old walked out of Amberton Grammar School during a revision period,…

Blood Standard

Written by Laird Barron — Alaskan ex-patriate Laird Barron now lives in New York State, where this debut crime novel is set. Barron, by the way,…