The Cast of Small Crimes

Before I sold Small Crimes to Serpent's Tail, Jean-Pierre Jacquet and I were proposing Small Crimes as a graphic novel to a French publisher. We went through several editorial board meetings--came close--but in the end the publisher felt Small Crimes was too mature for their audience. In the process of all this, Jean-Pierre drew up sketches of the cast of Small Crimes, which he's graciously allowing me to use. With Serpent's Tail days away from releasing my book in the UK, I'm going to start publishing these sketches here along with small excerpts if I can find appropriate ones early enough in the book.

First, the back cover copy Serpent's Tail came up with, and tomorrow an introduction to Joe Denton.

'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.'