Baskerville snaps up Baragwanath’s prize-winning crime debut

Baskerville has acquired Paper Cage, the debut novel of Tom Baragwanath, in a two-book deal.

Publishing director Jade Chandler acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding ANZ and Canada, to the two novels from Sarah Lutyens at Lutyens & Rubinstein.

Paper Cage won the 2021 Michael Gifkins Prize and is published by Text in Australia and New Zealand.

Baskerville will publish in February 2023, alongside US publisher Anchor/Vintage. Paper Cage is on the recently announced longlist for the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Award.

The story follows Lorraine Henry, a police records clerk in Masterton, a small New Zealand town. When children from the local community start to disappear without a trace, Lorraine – despite not being a police officer – is pulled into the depths of the case when her nephew suddenly goes missing.

The publisher says: “Both a nail-biting thriller and an acutely observed portrait of a community split along racial and cultural lines, Paper Cage is a compulsive and thoughtfully subtle read.”

Chandler said: “I was bowled over by Tom’s polished and assured debut. Lorraine Henry is a wonderful older female protagonist, who inhabits a liminal space of palpable tension between her Pākehā (white) police colleagues and her Māori family connections.

"Combined with its deeply atmospheric small-town setting and compulsive mystery plot, Paper Cage is going to be a must-read crime novel in 2024."

Baragwanath said: “This is a story close to my heart, and I can’t wait for a new set of readers to spend some time in a place that is so very dear to me. Thank you to Jade at Baskerville for finding the potential and promise in this story.”