Jewess reveals plans for new Viper crime imprint

Serpent's Tail senior commissioning editor Miranda Jewess says her new crime imprint, Viper, which launches tonight (7th November) will deliver "books with bite" with a range of police procedurals, psychological thrillers and debut authors in the mix. 

"Haunting police procedural", A Famished Heart, by Irish author Nicola White, will kick off the list and will be published in February 2020. "It's set in 1980s Dublin and it's a police procedural bit it's a story about women in Ireland at that time and how difficult it was to be a woman then, it's the first in a series of three and will explore different aspects of Irish identity and we're really excited about it", said Jewess. 

This will be followed by Ren Richards’ The Broken Ones, about a mother whose child mysteriously disappears; B M Carroll’s thriller Who We Were about old school grudges and Bitter Wash Road by Australia’s King of Crime, Garry Disher. A second title by Disher, "compelling mystery" Peace, is slated for publication in October 2020. 

Jewess, the former acquisitions and managing editor at Titan Books joined the company as senior commissioning editor for Serpent’s Tail Crime in February to commission titles across the crime, thriller, and suspense genres. With plans to publish six titles in 2020 and a further 10-12 in 2021, Jewess says she hopes the imprint will win a CWA Dagger in five years time. 

"We started discussions about the imprint when I joined in February. Serpent's Tail is famous for its brilliant literary novels, such as The Essex Serpent and Washington Black, whereas the new list I was brought in for is focused more on commercial crime and thriller and I wanted it to have a very distinctive voice. It was very important that the crime list had its own voice to allow us to speak to the reader rather than from under an umbrella." 

Asked if the crime fiction market is too crowded, she says: "Crime fiction now isn't really crime fiction most of the time, it's just fiction now. People who would read a detective novel will now read a psychological thriller and there is a constant demand. You can feel the market is too crowded but it doesn't tale long to read a book we just want constant stories. You've got Netflix and Amazon Prime who are constantly producing crime based content and that has spoken to a lot of people. There's a real appetite for it. For me, if in five years time we have won a CWA award, that will be a sign that we have really arrived." 

The list currently features a mix of debut authors, such as NPR senior editor Vikki Valentine writing under her pen name V L Valentine with The Plague Letters which sees a serial killer with a messiah complex infect his victims with the plague in 1665, and fitness instructor Tina Baker, whose debut novel, Call Me Mummy, will be published in February 2021. "It follows an outwardly refined woman who goes into Mothercare and sees another woman who she thinks is poor and badly behaved, and decides to take her five-year-old daughter believing she will be a better mother to her. It's brilliant and she is really one to watch, it's a very dark, psychological thriller," said Jewess. 

Established names, such as David Jackson, also join the list. His standalone thriller, The Resident, follows a serial killer on the run as he hides out in an abandoned house, only to realise he can access all the other houses on the terrace through the attic space, and begins to play deadly games. Viper will publish in July 2020. Jewess adds the list which features authors from the US and Australia is primarily female. "We seem to have more women on the list," said Jewess. "Everyone says women buy more books and read more books and it makes sense that women want to read other women's stories that might represent them." 

Explaining the imprint's name, Jewess said: "We wanted a name that had a strong link to Serpent's Tail, but also hints at what the list is all about. It's young, punchy, and as you'd expect, has a pretty high body count."

So where does this love of crime fiction come from? Jewess explains: When I was very young my father would home home from work later and if he got home in time he would read me Sherlock Holmes. He read The Adventure of the Speckled Band to me when I was four-years-old and I've not stopped reading crime fiction since. I just love books that have a mystery at their heart and keep pulling the reader in, it's really satisfying." 

Building on Serpent's Tail's history of crime fiction, Jewess added: "Viper is all about publishing new crime and thriller fiction, but our parameters aren't strict. Really I just love books that have a brilliant mystery at their heart. Whether that's a psychological thriller, a police procedural, historical crime, gothic whodunnit, or a high-concept genre crossover."

Read an exclusive online extract of launch title A Famished Heart by White here.