Johnny Compton brings a hard-edged noir sensibility to supernatural horror with Dead First, his new novel publishing February 10 via Putnam. The story follows private investigator Shyla Sinclair as she’s tasked with a baffling case: billionaire Saxton Braith, a man who seems incapable of dying. What begins as a routine investigation quickly pulls Shyla into a world of occult forces, buried trauma, and secrets that threaten to upend everything she holds dear.
Rather than relying on spectacle alone, Dead First fuses the meticulous mechanics of a classic detective story with the destabilizing logic of the supernatural. Compton balances investigation with revelation, using his immortal antagonist to push suspense to its limits while steadily heightening the psychological and emotional stakes.
Ahead of the novel’s release, Compton spoke with CinemaChords about the challenges of keeping a multi-genre narrative tightly controlled, sustaining tension with an unkillable antagonist, and exploring the deeper currents of power, revenge, and consequence that run beneath the novel’s supernatural whodunit framework.
Buy on Bookshop
