Westside by W. M. Akers is one hell of a debut. I went into this book really loving the premise of a detective who solves small mysteries like a missing broach or jewelry is lead into this huge mystery involving murder and supernatural elements. The voice is similar to Neil Gaiman’s and reminded me of Neverwhere meets Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell with a little Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter. It’s a good Historical Fiction Mystery that adds a dash of Supernatural to it. This novel is a trip that is not easy to predict where it’s going, and what a third act. I would like to thank HarperCollins Publishing and Netgalley for giving me the advanced uncorrected e-proof to read in exchange for an honest review.  This book will be available to the public on May 7th.

Plot: We follow Gilda Carr who lives on the Westside of New York in the early 1910’s.Gilda makes a living solving small mysteries like a missing glove or jewelry. The New York you know, isn’t the Westside it’s on the East, in this city the westside is the Eastside’s cursed twin. The westside is full of decay and hollowed out building, there’s no working electricity and gun don’t seem to work as the barrel quickly rust up. The westside is ugly but Gilda just calls it home. She is content solving her small mysteries a trait passed down from her father who was detective on the police force for the Westside, her latest case is finding a woman’s gloves that her husband bought her. This should be a nice small mystery, but this case opens her life up to murder, supernatural, and a case she had almost given up on the disappearance of her father.

What I Liked: Really unique way of describing people, that makes it easy to picture them. Really good world building and the history of Westside New York. I liked the device of small mysteries it gives you a slight Nancy Drew/Encyclopedia Brown vibe with a way darker tone which I enjoyed. I loved the characters of Gilda and her backstory and Virgil Carr her father’s backstory. For side character’s Ugly was my favorite, a henchman that clearly likes Gilda and all her moxie. The third act was great and the mastermind’s reveal was pretty shocking and did not see coming.  I liked the cover and how it relates to the novel, was really cool.

What I Disliked: At the beginning I was super confused whether Glinda was on the Eastside or the Westside, 40 pages in it got easier to tell. It took a while to get differentiate all the side characters from one anther and how they relate. I wanted more payoff on Brass’s song It felt like we were on it too much for it to make little impact to the story.

Recommendations: I really think you should check this book out it has a couple problem but really solid debut novel. If you like the way Neil Gaiman writes when he matches the real world with fantasy. If you like the colliding of genres like historical fiction with mystery and/or supernatural. I rated this book a solid 4 out of 5 stars.