Small Crimes, Serpent's Tail

 March 2008, Book #1 of my "Badass Out of Prison" series

Advance word on Small Crimes:

“I started the book on Friday, said I'd have a quick peek and finished it the next night –that's how much I liked it, had to keep going, thought unputdownable was just a handy tool for reviewers. I'm not going to say it's like Jim Thompson or the others as that would be a disservice, it's a whole new voice. Dark as bejaysus yet with this amazing light almost bantering tone which I loved. If the road to hell is paved to paved with good intentions, it may also be lined with small crimes. The style is wonderful, that knowing almost satanic voice, all the time justifying the multiplicity of crimes. Rarely have I seen a title fulfill the whole book so perfectly.

Small Crimes is a whole new jump in noir. Puts paid to all the recent arguments that noir has become watered down or is, urgh, noir lite. Here is the real deal. Classic noir, dark, funny, shocking and absolutely no compromise. The last 20 pages are truly a kick in the face. Pure magic of the blackest kind.”
Ken Bruen

"Zeltserman delves deeply into his specialty, an unorthodox look at the criminal mind-- the 'unlucky' guy who can fool himself way too long. It kept me turning pages and glancing over my shoulder."
Vicki Hendricks

"Small Crimes is a superbly crafted tale that takes the best from mid-century noir fiction and drops it expertly into the twenty-first century. Like the very best of modern noir, this is a story told in shades of grey. Immensely subtle, and written with a rare maturity and confidence, the story of troubled ex-con/ex-cop Joe Denton always keeps you guessing. This deserves to be massive. At the very least, it must surely be Dave Zeltserman’s breakthrough novel."
Allan Guthrie, author of Two-Way Split and Kiss Her Goodbye

From the back cover:

Crooked cop Joe Denton gets out of prison early after disfiguring the local district attorney, which doesn't help his popularity. Nobody wants Joe to hang around, not his ex-wife, his parents or his former colleagues. Meanwhile, local mafia don Manny Vassey is dying of cancer and keen to cut a deal with God. He's thinking of singing to the DA if this will set him up for a better afterlife. And he knows stuff that will send Joe down again for a very long time.

Set in the pressure cooker of a very small town, Small Crimes is an explosive thriller that brings the claustrophobic hell of Jim Thompson and James M. Cain right up to date.

Read the first chapter of Small Crimes online.

Pariah, Serpent's Tail

Mean like bad whiskey and sophisticated like good scotch, PARIAH is a rare find and a scorching read. This accomplished novel features a great blend of strong narrative voice and a realistic, multi-layered plot that lays bare the dark soul of South Boston's underworld. In Kyle Nevin, his main character, Zeltserman has a dark Celine creation that is as literary as he is noir. To my mind this novel provides the final word on the Southie's demise and does so more artfully than it's predecessors. Brimming with historical anecdote, rife with keen sociological insight, Zeltserman invests his novel with a veracity found mostly in non-fiction. However, this is a novel and a damn entertaining one, one that reminds us that reading the book truly is more informing and riveting than seeing the movie.

Cortright McMeel, Publisher of MURDALAND

"PARIAH IS ALL I KNOW OF BLISS AND LAMENT

BLISS AT READING A SUPERB NOVEL AND LAMENT AT KNOWING THAT DAVE ZELTSERMAN HAS NOW RAISED THE BAR SO HIGH, WE'RE SCREWED

THIS IS THE PERFECT PITCH OF REALITY, HISTORY, CRIME, CELEBRITY, PLAGIARISM, AND SHEER ASTOUNDING WRITING

IT NEEDS A NEW WHOLE NEW GENRE NAME..........IT'S BEYOND MYSTERY, LITERATURE, A SOCIO/ECONOMIC TRACT, A SCATHING INSIGHT INTO THE NATURE OF CELEBRITY AND IN KYLE NEVIN WE HAVE THE DARKEST MOST ALLURING NOIR CHARACTER EVER TO COME DOWN THE SOUTH BOSTON PIKE OR ANYWHERE ELSE IN LITERATURE EITHER

I WANT MORE OF KYLE AND MORE OF THIS SUPERB SHOTGUN BLAST OF A NARRATIVE...........IF EVERY WRITER HAS ONE GREAT BOOK IN THEM THEN DAVE CAN REST EASY, HE HAS HIS AND IT'S TO OUR DELIGHT AND DEEPEST ENVY"

Ken Bruen

Date: TBD, Book #3 of my "Badass Out of Prison" series

Seymour Shubin,  Anyone's My Name

FAST LANE has plenty of shocks, and as P.I. Johnny Lane's life begins to spin out of control, Zeltserman leads the reader on to the bleak conclusion with smooth prose and a sure hand.  This one's a noir keeper.

Bill Crider

FAST LANE is a wild ride on the darkest noir side of the street. Zeltserman has updated Jim Thompson themes of character and situation to forge a private eye novel where everything that can go wrong, does...with highly entertaining, if very grim results.

Jeff Gelb, co-editor of Flesh & Blood and Hot Blood Anthologies

David Zeltserman’s Fast Lane is fast all right, and in all the good ways ... Parts of this book reminded me of my favorite Orwell book, his memoir Down and Out in Paris and London, where Orwell, though sympathetic to the destitute people he meets also functions as a spy. If he hadn’t brought some distance to his travels the book would have turned into socialist mush. Zeltserman operates the same way. Johnny Lane doesn’t use the stand patter, think the standard p.i. thoughts, or even cry and bleed as we expect of all righteous private ops to. Zeltserman is too smart for that. There’s a distance, even an irony, on the hell he takes us through. Zeltserman’s is a new and different take on all the traditional tropes and set pieces. He's a unique and accomplished writer. I sure want to read more.

Ed Gorman

What begins as rather standard and Chandleresque masks a tale that spirals downward into a pit of noir, lies, betrayal, murder... and worse! Private eye Johnny Lane helps a woman find her birth parents but things soon get out of hand. A likeable PI with a hidden Jim Thompson darkside that gets out of control and seems to know no depths. It's there!

Gary Lovisi, Hardboiled Magazine

Fast Lane, a stunning, wild, psychotic ride of a debut by Boston’s own Dave Zeltserman ... Prediction -- fifty years from now, reviewers will be saying that the new noir guy on the scene is channeling Zeltserman’s Johnny Lane!  Johnny Lane is the psycho PI from hell and I cannot recall when I last enjoyed reading a character (and a writer) quite as well!

Lorna Hunt Ellison, Kate's Mystery Bookstore's Newsletter

Bad Thoughts, Five Star

July 2007

"A compellingly clever wheels-within-wheels thriller. An ingenious plot, skillfully executed"—Elliott Swanson, Booklist

"This fast-paced, gritty psychological tale balances the fine line between mystery and horror"—Library Journal

Bad Thoughts is an ambitious genre-bender combining the paranoia and existential dread of the best noir with a liberal dash of The Twilight Zone. Not to be missed. --Poisoned Pen's Booknews

"BAD THOUGHTS is one of those books that has been under the radar all year, yet deserves to be discovered by a wider audience"--Bruce Grossman, Bookgasm.com

Named one of the best books of 2007...

From the front cover book flap:

When he was thirteen years old, Billy Shannon came home from school one day to find his mother being murdered in their California home. Dying slowly of asphyxia, she is drowning in her own blood; a knife protruding from her open mouth and impaling her to the kitchen table. Twenty years pass, and Bill Shannon is a cop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, living with his wife Susie and trying to get a handle on the nightmares that have plagued him for most of his adult life. Every year, as the anniversary of his mother’s death approaches, the nightmares of his mother’s killer, Herbert Winters, get progressively worse until the blackouts come, and then Shannon simply disappears from sight to return home days later without a clue of what he has done while gone.

The 20th anniversary of his mother’s death is quickly approaching and Shannon desperately needs to figure out what he has been doing during his black outs, especially since women have recently started dying in the same grisly manner as his mother. His nightmares are getting worse and the evidence against him is stacking up... Everything seems to be pointing to one of two possibilities: Shannon has gone insane or Herbert Winters is back to his old tricks. The problem is if it’s Herbert Winters, then he’s come back from a long way to torment Bill Shannon… back from the grave which Bill Shannon had sent him to twenty years earlier.

Bad Thoughts is reminiscent of Silence of the Lambs and Darkly Dreaming Dexter, a terrifying vision of evil that straddles the razor-thin line between horror and crime. The story will leave readers breathless as it races towards a shocking conclusion that few, if any, could anticipate.

"Dark, brutal, captivating -- this is one hell of a book, the kind of book that doesn't let go of you once you start it. Dave Zeltserman is clearly the real deal."

Steve Hamilton, Edgar Award-Winning Author of A STOLEN SEASON

"...And it's at this point that the genre gets bent. After that, it's a wild ride. I was reminded a little of Blood Dreams, a novel by the late Jack MacLane, published by Zebra just after the era of the knives-in-fresh-fruit covers. Joe Lansdale's Act of Love had one of those covers, come to think of it. Zeltserman's book would rest comfortably on the shelf beside them. If you're looking for a hardboiled anybody-can-die-at-any-time book that's a change of pace from the usual, look no further."

Bill Crider, Murder among the Owls and A Mammoth Murder

Ken Bruen's thoughts on Bad Thoughts: " THIS IS HIGH OCTANE NOIR, DAZZLING IN IT'S SHEER VIVACITY........I DIDN'T LIKE THIS BOOK, I ADORED IT"

"Dave Zeltserman's Bad Thoughts is a fast moving occult thriller, with taut dialogue and smart, likeable characters. Darkness pervades the Bay State in the late 1990's and Detective Bill Shannon will be lucky to solve a standard missing person's case in one piece. In fact as the story unfolds we see that death and dismemberment could be the least of Bill's worries. Pour yourself a fifth of Scotch, get an easy chair, grab a protective talisman and enjoy."

Adrian McKinty, author of Dead I Well May Be and Hidden River

"I'm not sure I ever truly understood the concept of 'evil' before reading Bad Thoughts. In chilling prose and dialogue, Dave Zeltserman paints a portrait of a serial killer who surpasses Hannibal Lecter in 'creativity' and substitutes astral guile for intellect: a villain who not only toys with his victims' minds but also can enter both his victims' and the hero's dreams. Stunning, though definitely not for the faint of heart."

Jeremiah Healy, author of TURNABOUT and THE ONLY GOOD LAWYER

"Fans of Thomas Harris' "The Silence of the Lambs" and other novels featuring killer/cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter will enjoy "Bad Thoughts." Although he is not as brilliant or cultured as Lecter, Zeltserman's killer is as frightening and cruel and has certain powers that Lecter lacks. Moreover, because Zeltserman is careful to show the reader why his character became and remains a killer, the murderer in "Bad Thoughts" is in some ways more believable than Lecter.."

Timothy J. Lockhart, Virginian-Pilot

"Bad Thoughts is dark -- Edgar Allan Poe dark, and I put the book down feeling as though I’d just run through a gloomy, damp, filthy alley. Which is exactly what Zeltserman was going for, wasn’t it?"

James Winter, January Magazine

"This dark tale is well written, with good pacing, plenty of tension, and enough twists to satisfy the most demanding reader. Graphic descriptions and lots of violence are all there and never gratuitous."

Joe DeMarco, Mysterical-E

"A fast paced psychological thriller, BAD THOUGHTS has many graphic descriptions, but even so, turning the pages is effortless all the way to the climactic end. Every page pulls pull the reader deeper into Bill's nightmares, leaving you wondering who the bad guy really is. Trust no one...If you like hard-edged drama and tense mystery, BAD THOUGHTS is the just the ticket!"

Romance Review Today

 
Outsourced

Outsourced is more crime/suspense thriller than noir. A group of software engineers who've been made obsolete due to outsourcing try to rob a bank out of desperation, with things not quite working out as planned. Add Russian mobsters, the local Boston Mafia, and Arab terrorists into the mix, and then shake (not stir) thoroughly before pouring.

Outsourced: the Email Path. Part experimental, part fooling around, I've created online the email exchange between the software engineers turned bank robbers that occurred during the days leading up to the robbery. While written within the context of the novel, this is also meant to work as a standalone piece.

Read Chapter 1 of Outsourced.

 
Bad Karma

Bad Karma is the first in what hopefully will be a long series featuring Boulder, Colorado based PI, Bill Shannon. It takes place five and a half years after Bad Thoughts ended, and has Bill Shannon moving from the Boston area to Boulder, Colorado, retired from the police force and now a part-time PI. Adopting a vegetarian life style, and doing both meditation and dream therapy to heal himself psychically and emotionally from the damage that was done to him in Bad Thoughts, Shannon is moving on with his life. When he takes on a cold case of two murdered University students, the trail leads him, among other places, to a pseudo-religious cult, yoga studios and Russian mobsters. Keeping with the Boulder mindset, new age ideas are on the peripheral of this crime thriller, and keeping with my Boston background so is the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry.

Contact Dave