Seven Debut Novels You Should Read This Month

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CrimeReads editors select the month’s best debuts in crime, mystery, and thrillers.

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Erik Hoel, The Revelations
(Overlook Press)

Hoel’s debut is one of the year’s most ambitious novels to date, a provocative and weighty exploration of nothing short of human consciousness. The story centers on a researcher fallen from grace but offered a second chance in an elite postdoctoral program, where his own search for the roots of consciousness come into a sudden clash with the the investigation into a colleague’s death. The novel is packed full with ideas, debates, scientific inquiry, and language that seems itself to come alive. This is a mystery novel you won’t soon forget and the announcement of a major new talent. –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Editor-in-Chief

Carole Johnstone, Mirrorland
(Scribner)

Johnstone’s book moves between our world to Mirrorland, a dark place conjured up by two sisters, Cat and El. Cat is now living in Los Angeles, far from her childhood home in Edinburgh where the sisters dreamed of creatures living under the stairs, witches, pirates, and clowns (obviously nothing is scarier than clowns). Cat is moved to return after El disappears, and the house is just as spooky and shadowy as it was in her youth. But now the secrets about her family and the house are both coming to light—every room seems to hold a clue Cat must follow to find El and go back to Mirrorland. –Lisa Levy, CrimeReads Contributing Editor

Dario Diofebi, Paradise, Nevada
(Bloomsbury)

Diofebi’s debut novel begins with a bang: on May 1, 2015, a bomb explodes in the Positano Luxury Resort in Las Vegas. The resort is an exact replica of the Amalfi coast: a slice of Italy on the Strip. Diofebi, who is Italian, is deft with a large cast of characters, some American, some Italian, a cocktail waitress and a professional poker player, a Mormon journalist, and an Italian tourist. This book aims high and delivers: the combination of his Vegas setting and his empathetic characters push this into a crime novel as a comedy of manners writ broad. An auspicious debut for Diofebi. –LL

Zhanna Slor, At The End of the World, Turn Left
(Agora)

Slor’s debut is a powerful story of identity and longing, as two sisters whose family left the USSR for the United States struggle to cope with the ripple effects of displacement and their own relationship. Masha, living in Israel, is called home to Milwaukee following the disappearance of her sister, Anna, following a mysterious contact from a stranger claiming to be another long-lost sibling from Russia. The webs of secrecy and lies are tangled up here, and Masha’s journey back toward her sister is moving and subtly haunting. –DM

A.E. Osworth, We Are Watching Eliza Bright
(Grand Central)

Like The Guild, Osworth’s new novel is entertaining for gamers and noobs alike. Programmer Eliza Bright has just been promoted at her gaming company when she begins to encounter sexism from her coworkers. After she reports the harassment, her attackers turn to their beloved gaming community for vengeance, assaulting her in-game character and doxing her in real life. But Eliza Bright has some powerful allies, and she’s not going to go down without a fight. This one kind of reads like GamerGate as told by the guy who directed The Lives of Others. –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Senior Editor

Amy Suiter Clarke, Girl 11
(Houghton Mifflin)

This compelling new novel from Amy Suiter Clarke centers on the story of Elle Castillo, a social worker turned host of a popular true crime podcast based out of Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Castillo takes on cold cases, and the one that’s most haunted her over the years is The Countdown Killer. Police believe the ritual-killer died long ago by suicide, but Castillo gets a tip about the killer, and the tipster ends up dead, setting off a new chain of familiar killings. The serial killer novel is evolving quickly in the new true crime era, and Girl 11 perfectly captures the new approach. We’re no longer following FBI agents and expert profilers, but characters who take on crime in their own dogged way. –DM

Bryan Christy, In the Company of Killers
(Putnam)

Christy, the founder of National Geographic’s Special Investigations team, makes his fiction debut with an exhilarating espionage novel tracking investigative reporter and CIA operative, Tom Klay, who goes on a very personal mission of revenge following an attack on assignment in Kenya. The story bounces around hotspots in Africa and shines a light on horrifying abuse and exploitation coming out of the world of wildlife trafficking. –DM

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