What do I feel when I read a new mystery author? Hope and excitement. I hope that I am going to love the new addition to the genre and hope that the author writes many more wonderful books. Here are a few new authors full of promise and hope.

 

Reading right now:

“Down Range” by Taylor Moore” is the first book in a new series and this author’s first book. It centers around DEA Agent Garrett Kohl whose family is threated by a vicious criminal enterprise. The place he calls home in Texas is under attack and those criminals are terrorizing both Kohl’s family and his community. When Kohl goes home from Afghanistan to try to deal with the problem, he finds himself fighting a new war.

                                          

On hold right now:

Susan Walter’s first mystery is “Good as Dead.” Secrets and keeping those secrets is the basis of this novel which starts with Holly Kendrick’s husband dying in a hit-and-run accident which she witnessed. When the rich and powerful driver offers her money to start a new life, she cannot afford to refuse. Unfortunately, her new neighbors want to dig up her secrets while keeping their own buried.

“Welcome to Cooper” is Tariq Ashkanani’s debut thriller which centers around Detective Thomas Levine whose transfer from a big city to what he considers a grubby backwater becomes transformational for him and the town of Cooper, Nebraska. He finds himself trying to solve the murder of a young woman while fighting a violent drug cartel.

Dan Schorr’s “Final Table” is a timely political thriller involving sexual scandal, cover ups and media dysfunction.

Other Mysterious Things:

Every author’s career starts with that first novel. Not everyone’s first novel is turned into a movie like David Baldacci’s “Absolute Power” or end up writing over 50 books like Baldacci. Some authors only write one really famous book which was all they needed to do. Edgar Allan Poe only wrote one novel “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.” Most of the Sherlock Holmes books are collections of short stories. The point is that when you come upon a new author you just never know, but you always hope.