One year ago, I was pleased to see Grove Atlantic, the celebrated independent literary publisher, announce a new crime-focused imprint. Atlantic Crime is celebrating its first birthday, and last week, I met with its senior editor to mark the occasion.

Joe Brosnan joins the Cluesletter to chat about acquiring and marketing books, nurturing a new imprint, and the mystery trends on his radar.

It’s a long interview (my first I’ve conducted verbally, not written), but it’s chock-full with insights about our favorite genre. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

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I’d like to just start with sort of an origin story of the imprint, for a little bit of context. How long were you at Grove Atlantic before you had this idea? When did you feel like it was first worth starting a crime-focused imprint?

I joined Grove Atlantic in May of 2022. Before that, I was at Minotaur Books and St. Martin’s Press, so I had kind of come up in publishing through a mystery imprint, a place where everything we did was all united under one common type of book.

When I joined Grove Atlantic, it was very much the opposite. Grove’s reputation is as a literary house. They publish award-winning fiction and nonfiction—serious books. But at the same time, for the last fifteen to twenty years, they’ve been publishing crime fiction quite extensively. They wanted someone to come in and focus on that; someone who wasn’t interested in acquiring literary fiction or nonfiction, who just wanted to take over some authors who were already here and also bring in some new people. So it was a perfect fit for me.

Before I started editing, I was on the marketing team, so I always have a marketing approach to all books that I publish as an editor, thinking about how to bring it to market from the minute I buy it and acquire it. I quickly learned that the consumers and followers that we had at Grove—on social media, in our newsletters, our bookseller contacts—they didn’t know us or follow us for crime. They were there for the other books that Grove is known for. And so it made it tricky . . . I felt like you were tying one hand behind your back on behalf of these books, where you didn’t have as strong of an influencer program, or you didn’t have librarians and booksellers who you knew wanted these types of books from you, and so the idea I had was to unify all of this under an imprint. To really legitimize and call attention to what we were already doing and give us our own sandbox to play in.

It’s been really great, because we’ve been building our own influencer program, our own library and bookseller newsletters and mailing lists. We’ve encouraged all of our authors to adopt this Atlantic Crime team mentality, so they’re all getting to know each other, they’re doing events together, they’re communicating online, and kind of building this family feeling. It’s been really great for the books, because not every author comes pre-installed with a huge following, or is really doing a lot on social media themselves. Being able to give them more visibility through our own channels and know that it’s going to followers who want that sort of content has been really good.

We have a dozen plus mystery and crime writers, so the idea was to unite them, bring in new people, and expand this a little bit. It made it easy to launch the imprint, in a way, because we had books to give away, authors to help promote, and a backlist to lean on. It made it a really fun process.

Now, in February 2026, Atlantic Crime is celebrating your first birthday. What have you learned over the past year that has surprised you about having this type of imprint, and what do you look forward to in the next year and beyond?

Something that’s been kind of eye-opening is how—and this is maybe obvious—you have such a short window to get people’s attention for books and authors that they are not familiar with already. People put such an emphasis on that first look at the cover, or that first look at that tagline. And this has really shifted the way I’ve been thinking about how to announce books and what sort of covers are working or not working.

I personally am a huge espionage fan, I enjoy reading and publishing it, but that doesn’t connect quite as much online, at least with what we’ve experimented with. I think it skews a bit older, and the people who we’re connecting with for our influencer program are not requesting those sorts of books, so it’s just about drilling down into all of our datasets and learning where to direct attention. Like, we have Lucy Clark, who writes destination thrillers. Those move really quickly when we put them in our influencer program, so putting more of our efforts for Lucy into this certain channel. And then for my British espionage book, going more toward librarians, who I think have an understanding of the readers coming into their library systems who want that sort of book.

My whole career’s been in crime and mystery, so it’s fun to segment out into the broadness of the genre. I used to manage [the website] Criminal Element, and we’d have to put tags on everything. You would really question, is this more of a mystery? Is this a thriller? And then you drill down further. The trickiest part is to not misrepresent the book you have, because I think that’s just how you lead to readers leaving a 3-star review, when, had you represented it correctly, it’s a 4 or a 5.

We have a heck of a year lined up for our books. We have a book coming in March called Ruby Falls, a kind of locked room mystery set underground during the Great Depression. It’s about a middle-aged woman who’s at the height of her powers and her happiness—a character who just screamed to me that we need to tell this person’s story.

Otherwise, I’m looking forward to hopefully acquiring some new stuff. We don’t have a ton of space on our list, but we have some slots. We’re picky. I’m picky. But I know there’s something out there I’m looking forward to buying. I’m hoping to buy something a little more speculative, maybe something tinged in horror, just kind of diversifying the list, right? Because I think you want to have all the different sorts of mysteries, all these subgenres. I think there are some blind spots on the list.

You touched on this already, but you have this background in marketing, specifically for crime fiction, at Criminal Element and at St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books. How is that work in marketing informing your work as an editor?

The difference between being an editor and being a marketer is that when you’re an editor, for the most part, you get to choose what you work on. You acquire it, it’s your decision, you do so because you love it. In marketing, you get assigned your books, so it’s not always a love thing, right? And you have to really learn what works. And what doesn’t work—both on the story level and the types of books, but also with the author.

I’m very protective of my time as an editor, and so I only want to give it to people who I can see myself working with. I don’t need to be good friends with them, but I do look for someone who I think is aligned with me in how this business works. Because when the stakes are feeling like they’re impossible, it can lead to a really pressure-filled experience. We’re going to give it our all, but sometimes books don’t work, bad reviews come in, and it can be tricky to work with authors who aren’t understanding of that.

From a marketing perspective, I pay attention to how people are talking about books. At the time of publication, booksellers, librarians, consumers . . . what they’re doing when they’re posting about it on Instagram or TikTok, or what the shelf talkers in the stores are saying. It helps me write my copy, come up with taglines, and figure out how to pitch the book to get people excited. If you do a good job of setting up a book, that tagline and that description and that elevator pitch will follow it right down to the consumers.

My time at Minotaur really helped. I worked on so many books, from the coziest mysteries you could think of to some really dark, dark stuff, and even some nonfiction and high-profile authors. With all of these different books at these different levels with these different budgets, you realize what’s working and what’s not. And now I get to apply it to the books I’m really, really passionate about, and publishing, and it’s led to a rewarding imprint experience for Atlantic Crime.

Maybe it’s just confirmation bias, because I’ve been reading this genre for so long, but I see a lot of crime-focused imprints at various publishers—more than, I think, any other genre. What about the genre do you think makes it worth investing in, as a publisher?

I think there’s a few things . . . Crime can almost be, at times, synonymous with tension, and most, if not all, good narrative stories contain tension in some way. And so, this genre is almost, like, a foolproof way to guarantee tension. At the highest of stakes,the world needs saving, but sometimes it’s literally a secret between two people, and it’s all internalized. But even that, as a device, lets you talk about bigger things, right?

I think right now you’re seeing a lot of important books under the guise of a crime or a mystery book. But they’re talking about things that are important to us readers, and also people in general. Crime lets you do that without it feeling too preachy, or too much like, “I’m doing my homework.” You still get some escapism. It’s like when you read historical fiction, you don’t realize you’re learning, but now all of a sudden you know all these different things about whatever era you’re reading about. I think good crime fiction holds up a mirror. It shows the complexities inherent to humankind.

I also think series are one of the most reliable ways to build an audience as an author. With mystery, many series come out with a new book every year. Then they backlist well, so publishers are incentivized to really invest in the series—whether it’s in the crime space, romance, whatever. I’m not spending any marketing dollars on books 2, 3, 4, 5, but they’re still selling, and that’s how you stay profitable. It’s why it’s so hard to start any sort of publishing enterprise from scratch, because you have no backlist. It takes a long time for a book to be profitable.

I have an oddball, fun question: Are there any book trends that you want to see, whether it’s in the publishing side of things, or tropes in the actual books, that you want to see left behind in 2025?

There’s a lot of stuff coming in with quirky, oddball titles and characters. I think it’s born out of the really fun books, like Finlay Donovan [by Elle Cosimano] or Vera Wong [by Jesse Q. Sutanto], where it’s like a title, with a character’s name, and they’re getting into mischief. I think these stories are hard to pull off. I think those books [Finlay Donovan and Vera Wong] are really good because those authors have aced that character and their humor, and humor is subjective. I see a lot of submissions that are purporting to be the next and they’re falling flat for me, so I’ll be interested to see how that trend continues.

I think we’re all looking for lighter escapist reads, because everything is so dark everywhere. So I am interested to see how the Golden Age and locked room mysteries continue. Cozies are tricky—I love them, but I think the cozy concept is changing. It was a very different sort of book when I was starting out. It was tea shops and cats, right? Those are still there, but I think it’s gotten broader. And I don’t know if we found another word to quite capture that. I’m also curious about horror . . . I would love to find a good horror crime novel.

What are you looking forward to this year?

I’m excited for ThrillerFest coming up, and I think I’ll be going to Bouchercon in Calgary, Canada. I like when I get to mingle with the community. I feel like I always leave very refreshed and affirmed in what I’m doing, because the lonely months of editing and not talking to people get dark, when you’re doing the same thing all the time. But otherwise, yeah, just looking forward to lots of good books, and hopefully finding some new ones.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Many thanks to Joe for his time and insights. Subscribe to the Cluesletter here.

Dearest Bindery Detectives:

A quick message to announce that the Bindery app is now live in the Apple App Store! 🎉

The Bindery team has been hard at work on this for a long time, and based on feedback from you all, I know there’s plenty of interest.

What I love most about the app is its discoverability features: You can search for a book title and see all the content that’s been posted about it, so you can easily discover new tastemakers to follow. For example, search for Murdle: Volume 1 and you’ll see my videos, plus content from Jaysen (Ezeekat Press).

If you have questions or feedback, DM me anywhere or comment on this post and I’ll pass it along to the developers.

(PS, an Android app is in progress!!)

Yours mysteriously,

Manon

Early access to Cluesletter interviews is available to Novel Sleuths subscribed to my Bindery. If you’re reading this, that’s you! Thanks ever so much for your support.

Today, we are traveling back in time to 1901 London to investigate the curious murder of the Lord Chief Justice of England. Joining us for an interview is Sally Smith, whose debut, A Case of Mice and Murder, is so rich, immersive, and well-written that I could not believe it was her first book.

If you like historical crime, legal settings, and a logical, intelligent, and charmingly reluctant sleuth, I highly suggest you keep reading—and then pick this one up for yourself.

Welcome, Sally! Set in 1901 London, A Case of Mice and Murder follows barrister Gabriel Ward as he reluctantly investigates the murder of the Lord Chief Justice of England. I loved Gabriel’s character—hyper intelligent, particular, and careful—and the close-knit legal setting of London’s Inner Temple. What do you love about Gabriel, as a lawyer and as a detective?

Hello and thank you for asking me about my novel. I think Gabriel has some very typical characteristics of a lawyer; as you say, he is very particular and careful and also very logical and detached in his approach to life. He is also kind and tolerant and naturally empathetic. And a good observer. All those characteristics make him a good detective as well.

How has your professional background as a barrister and King’s Counsel in the Inner Temple influenced your writing? How did your present-day experience help you construct Gabriel’s 1901?

I have been a barrister all my working life and I am lucky enough to both work and live in the Inner Temple, so I am absolutely steeped in the atmosphere. One of the challenges was to reconstruct the physical surroundings. Whilst some buildings and parts of the layout are exactly as they were in 1901, there was extensive bomb damage in the Second World War so some parts are quite different. Because the present appearance is so familiar to me I found it quite a challenge to retrain parts of my mind’s eye to see it all as Gabriel saw it. But having said that, the way of life, close and collegiate has not really changed all that much!

Gabriel is solving, essentially, two mysteries at once: the murder, and the authorship of a popular children’s book, Millie the Temple Church Mouse. How did you construct the story, in order to successfully weave these two plotlines together? To what extent did you plot the mystery before writing it?

I wrote the beginnings of the two stories separately and then as the plots converge, the writing sort of converged with it. This was my first novel and I think I was rather amateur in my approach to plotting, which was partly planned beforehand but mainly grew organically as I went along.

As a debut author, what have you learned during this publishing process? Is there anything that surprised you as you brought your book to market, and/or do you have any advice for emerging authors?

I was absolutely bowled over by the skill of both my agent and editor who really did take me by the hand and teach me an enormous amount about how to structure my story. I have learned quite a lot, I hope, about eliminating self-indulgence from my writing and concentrating on telling the story in a way I hope readers will enjoy. I think I would say to an aspiring author that the best thing to do is read obsessively, good and bad. It is never wasted and either way it always teaches you something; if only what to avoid!

Lastly, what’s next for you? When can we expect more Gabriel Ward, and/or do you have any other projects you’re excited to share?

Gabriel presently takes up all my time. A second one is coming out in the UK on July 17 and I am very heavily engaged in writing the third. Each follows the same pattern of a murder and a legal case, but I am learning more and more about Gabriel as he develops quite happily all by himself.

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Look for this interview in the July 8, 2025 Cluesletter. (Subscribe here!)

Yours mysteriously,
Manon 🔍✨