Crime novel debuts

This week sees the release of three debut crime novels that have been raking in rave reviews: Sean Chercover's Big City, Bad Blood, Marcus Sakey's The Blade Itself, and Sandra Ruttan's Suspicious Circumstances.

Here are some helpful links for Sandra's novel:

• Suspicious Circumstances's page 69 test
• reviews & interviews
• Anne Frasier's rave
• SC's first DorothyL review
• Sandra's interview with Julia Buckley

Here are some links for Sean's novel:

• BC, BB's page 69 test
• "Ray Dudgeon Goes On A Date. . ." -- an excerpt
• three questions for Sean
  
• a recent AP review
• more great reviews and buzz
  

And here are links for Marcus's novel:

• The Blade Itself, page 69 test
• "Pisser" --an excerpt
• another excerpt
• Janet Maslin's New York Times review
• Sarah Weinman's takedown of Maslin's review
• more reviews & buzz
  

All three novelists are members of Killer Year, a collective of debut novelists, and Marcus and Sean are members of The Outfit, a blog for a collective of Chicago crime writers.

--Marshal Zeringue