Skyhorse Publishing is stepping up its presence in crime fiction with the launch of Arcade CrimeWise. The imprint will launch its first titles this fall under the direction of Cal Barksdale, the executive editor of Skyhorse’s Arcade Publishing unit. It will publish six to eight titles annually.
In a release, Skyhorse noted that it has had success publishing genre fiction over the last several years in areas such as mysteries, noir, thrillers, and spy novels. Among the books Skyhorse has published are His Bloody Project, The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, and The Accident on the A35, by Man Booker nominee and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist Graeme Macrae Burnet; the Darby Holland Crime Novel series by Jeff Johnson; and the most recent mysteries by bestselling author Raymond Benson, The Secrets on Chicory Lane and In the Hush of the Night.
Moving forward, these types of books will be branded, marketed, promoted, and sold as Arcade CrimeWise. Skyhorse is promising to back the imprint with a six-figure annual promotional budget.
CrimeWise's launch list will feature Bart Paul’s See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, the third novel in the Tommy Smith High Mountain Noir series (September); Benson’s The Blues in the Dark, a crime drama that tackles racism, sexism, and murder in Hollywood in the 1940s (October); W.C. Ryan’s A House of Ghosts, a finalist for the NBA Irish Book Award set during World War I (October); and the second book in Lisa Preston’s feminist/western/mystery Horseshoer series, Dead Blow (November).
In a statement, Barksdale said the creation of CrimeWise will give the company’s crime fiction “a new platform and resources that will allow us to bring them to a broader public.”
