Writing as an aged hack, and a commentator on other people’s creativity (having little of my own), I can hardly imagine what a mixture of triumph, joy – and trepidation – must run through the minds of writers when they finally have a book that makes it into print. I have read some very good self-published books this year, but to have actually convinced a hard-nose publisher that your novel is worth printing – that must be an amazing feeling. Likewise, it must be what sports commentators call “squeaky bum time” waiting to see if members of the public actually stump up and buy your book.
The notable debuts in crime fiction this year have been many and varied. I was much taken by the main character in RG Oram’s Much Needed Rain, whose perceptions and awareness of his fellow mortals are so acute that he is, effectively, a human polygraph. Lloyd Otis served up a dystopian London in 1977 with his Deadlands – splendidly both crime and grimy. In another urban landscape similarly blighted, Augustus Rose, in The Readymade Thief, described a delinquent girl turned loose in a Chicago that was a potent mixture of gritty realism and fantasy.
Without doubt the most compelling three words uttered in a 2017 debut novel were, “Choose one, bitch”, the strapline for Samantha King’s The Choice, where she created a nightmare world of domestic Noir where a mother is forced to choose between the lives of her two children. TA Cottrell provided another peep between the curtains of an apparently normal house, when What Alice Knew laid bare the scars of memory, guilt and bitterness that can be borne by old relationships. Peter Laws is an intriguing chap. He is a serving Baptist minister, with a fascination for horror and the supernatural. In Purged, he introduced us to Matt Hunter, a former minister himself who, in between lecturing on comparative religions, investigates dark deeds – in this case a series of murders connected to a charismatic church and its congregation. A novel which received huge praise around the world for its power and elegiac qualities was The Dry, by Australian Jane Harper. This was a compelling account of how a Federal policeman returns to his hometown, a five hour dusty drive from Melbourne, to investigate the slaughter go a local family.
Every book I’ve mentioned won admirers from different sections of the reading public but, for me, the die was cast when a rather shy young man read the opening paragraphs of his soon-to-be-published novel at a book promotion evening in a smart Fitzrovia Hotel. Joseph Knox (left) may still have work to do to become a Richard Burton in the making, but Sirens is comfortably my debut novel of 2017. On a very superficial level it’s a police procedural, set in Manchester, where we share the trials and tribulations of a young copper, Aidan Waits. Waits is a complex character, attended by his own demons and obsessed with bringing down a local drug baron. That’s where any resemblance to a bog-standard cops and robbers tale ends. Knox writes with the kind of savage poetry which reminded me very much of the great Derek Raymond and the bleak world and urban eloquence of his Factory novels. I am delighted that a follow-up novel is on its way, but what a challenge, to equal such a stunning debut!
“Knox has penned a black tale which is certainly not a comfort read. There are passages which made me physically wince, but the author has the confidence to give us an ending, once the mayhem has died down, which is both bitter-sweet and poignant.”
Click the links to see who won
Look For Me is a return to active duty for Boston Detective D D Warren. In the twelfth book of an obviously popular series, Gardner brings back a character – Flora Dane – from an earlier book, Find Her, in which Dane was a resilient but haunted survivor of kidnap and abduction. Now, Dane’s thirst for vengeance on her tormentor is a mixed blessing for Warren who is faced with a murder scene of almost unimaginable violence. Four members of the same family lie slaughtered in the family home, a refuge transformed into a charnel house. But where is the fifth member of the family? Has the sixteen year-old girl escaped, or is her disappearance the prelude to an even greater evil? Look For Me is published by Century, part of the Penguin Random House group, and will be available in early February 2018. You can pre-order a copy 
Polish history in the twentieth century shows us a region constantly in the thick of conflict between rival military forces. It was the scene of many of the battles on the Eastern Front during WWI, and Poland suffered hugely at the hands of the Nazis during WWII. The very worst concentration camps set up by Hitler were on what is now Polish territory. Then, post-war, came what was, to all intents and purposes, a Russian occupation. Peter Haden’s novel Jan actually deals with a real person, his uncle, Jan Janicki and his exploits both before and during the Nazi occupation of his homeland. The novel tells of a flight from desperate domestic poverty, the humiliation of working for the ruthless German invaders, but then a determination to fight back, which sees Jan laying his life on the line to support the Polish resistance movement. Jan is published by Matador, and is available from 
From Poland to Italy, where much of A Time For Role Call by Doug Thompson (left) is set. Former Professor of Modern Italian language, history and literature, Doug Thompson draws on his intimate knowledge of Italy to write a lively novel with a feisty protagonist and colourful cast of supporting characters. Sally Jardine-Fell is recruited by the wartime Special Operations Executive to travel to Italy. Her mission? To insinuate herself into the life of none other than Count Galeazo Ciano, Foreign Minister to Il Duce – Benito Mussolini – himself. Inevitably, things do not go according to plan, and, despite both the war and Mussolini himself becoming consigned to history, events conspire against Sally, and she finds herself in a cell, charged with murder. A Time For Role Call is published by Matador, and is available 
The woman is a former rock star, now reduced to providing the warm-up act to tribute bands in dingy roadside venues. All that Amy Nathanson has left to remind her of her brief spell of fame as ‘Aimee En’ is her former manager, now disease-stricken, and a luridly painted vintage Jaguar car, which she calls her “baby”. Now, on this grim night, as she drives home from her less than star-studded gig, she has been involved in a terrible accident. Her precious car has been hijacked but, even worse, a teenage boy lies broken in the road, run down by the car and its illicit driver.
Alison Gaylin (right) knows full well that every human interaction in the modern world – birth, death, triumph, failure, joy and misery – has to play out on social media, and so it is after the death of Liam Miller. We see the messages and memes, the grief and the anger, flash around the Havenkill cyberspace as the speculation about the identity of Liam’s killer intensifies. Even the makeshift shrine outside Liam’s family home is dwarfed by the virtual tribute page set up by his parents.
Lawrence Kelter: There was one specific project I always wanted to be involved in, but like the rock star dream and the Super Bowl victory, I thought it was not to be. You might think this silly or lame. And maybe it is. There was a film I enjoyed so much that every time it popped up on TV, it made me late for an appointment because I just couldn’t pull myself away. I knew the script verbatim and often incorporated the better-known lines into my everyday conversation. That movie is My Cousin Vinny.
Lawrence Kelter: Writing BACK TO BROOKLYN was the most fun I’ve ever had sitting in front of a keyboard. I have high hopes for this book. After all, I love the characters and the backstory—not to mention the two years I have invested in the project. But where it goes from here… I’ve received a great deal of feedback from readers. Almost universally they tell me that that they can hear Lisa and Vinny in their heads playing that cat and mouse game–they visualize Marisa Tomei and Joe Pesci as they’re reading. Nothing could be more rewarding than that.
fullybooked2017 