A poem

I'm going through old papers and found a poem I had written many years. I don't know when I wrote it, but since I had used a typewriter, it would either have been in high school or college. In any case, here's my one and only attempt at poetry:

Tilling the Soil

The beast is in the yoke
And I at the harness
For together through muddy fields

of hope and ideas

We Plow

Through the hypocrisy

the stone strewned bureaucracy 

We toil
Turning over old phrases

To reveal implicit mazes

Which dissipate through the

Top soil

Man and beast we work

Scratching the earth

Preparing for next season's harvest

But wait

The beast wheezes and sneezes and

Oh Jesus

Freezes my glands as

Hairy thorns sprout

And tales of Germans flow out

Amidst this beastly transformation

So with a whirling and chirling

And new-born talons churning

The beats-monster is free from my service

To debauch my dreams

With random desire and

Frenzied malice deep in mire

More Julius Katz and Archie On sale now!

 

"The puzzles are clever, and Zeltserman plays fair with readers. Stout devotees will be delighted with this loving homage." Publishers Weekly (starred review)

On sale now for $2.99!

Jury Box review of Detectives and Spies

 

In the March/April issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Steven Steinbock offers the following review of Detectives and Spies in his Jury Box column: Zeltserman, who has garnered multiple EQMM Readers Awards as well as the Derringer and Shamus awards, has brought together nine stories, the first four featuring an artificial-intelligence device called Archie Smith, followed by three stories about former L.A. cop Morris Brick and two hardboiled crime stories featuring Hell’s only private eye, Mike Stone. Most of the stories first appeared in EQMM or in its sister publication Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. My favorites are the stories about Archie, especially relevant with AI constantly in the news. Archie, a “highly-sophisticated neuron network,” serves as Watson to private eye Julius Katz in the first two stories, then is passed on to Katz’s sister, international spy Julia Katz, for the next two. Reading these tales is like playing a lively game of Clue, except with more colorful characters and an AI at your side.

Detectives and Spies available now!

 

Kindle and paperback editions of my latest collection are available now! Also, look for my new Steve Heller & Joe "Red" Sullivan story in the Jan/Feb issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, out now.

New mystery collection featuring stories with Julius Katz + Morris Brick + Mike Stone

 

THREE sections. Four different types of mystery and crime stories.

Whether it’s the brilliant Boston detective Julius Katz, or his sister Julia, the first three stories in the KATZ section are traditional mysteries. A crime has been committed, the potential suspects are questioned, and the guilty party is exposed. While the fourth story in the KATZ section, Archie’s Been Stolen!, has the same style, tone and humor as all the other Julius Katz and Archie stories, it’s a caper. There’s no mystery to solve, only a heist of sorts to commit.

The three stories in the BRICK section are crime thrillers featuring investigator Morris Brick, his bull terrier Parker, and the rest of the MBI team. These stories and the five Morris Brick novels that I wrote under the Jacob Stone pseudonym for Kensington have similar humor and style, are fast-paced, and are populated by hardened criminals and mobsters. Where they differ is the novels have very bad people committing horrific acts while the stories are lighter. While there’s plenty of danger in these stories, ultimately no one gets badly hurt.

The two stories in the STONE section features Hell’s only operating private eye, Mike Stone, from my novel Everybody Lies in Hell. Even with the unique setting and the fantastic elements, such as souls being tormented by demons and demonic racing horses that bite the heads off of jockeys, these are hardboiled PI stories. These stories are about stripping away the self-deceptions and lies we tell ourselves to expose the ugly truths underneath, and there’s not much more hardboiled than that!

So given that these are all mystery and crime stories, why the title Detectives and Spies? While all the stories have either detectives or spies acting as detectives, three of the stories are a merging of the mystery and spy genres.

Kindle and paperback editions of Detective and Spies will be available in one week!

My Julius Katz paperback collection

 

With 'Detective and Spies' coming out Dec. 12th, I gave a hard look at the paperback versions of my other Julius Katz books and ended up redoing 'Julius Katz and Archie' and 'More Julius Katz and Archie.' The change to 'More Julius Katz and Archie' was simply changing the font to Garamond 12-pt, which I'm using for all of these books, and which I decided is (for me) the ideal font for a book. Along with changing the font for 'Julius Katz and Archie', I also changed the size of the paperback from 6in x 9 in, to 5 in by 8 in, which I think is a much more attractive size. I also a cover designed as opposed to using Amazon's cover creator for the original paperback. The new paperback design:

This new version will be available for purchase on Dec. 1st. With these changes, I now have a set of paperbacks that Julius Katz fans will be proud to put on their shelves, and will have (in my opinion) the perfect font and size for reading.

Coming Dec. 12th -- Detectives and Spies

 

Katz. Brick. Stone. Traditional mysteries. Crime thrillers. Hardboiled PI. The Katz section has 4 stories, including a new novella, "Julius Katz and the Ruined Roast." The Brick section has 3 stories, including the new story "James & Bond." The Stone section has two PI in Hell stories starring my PI from Everybody Lies in Hell.

Detectives and Spies will be available as a kindle ebook and paperback on Dec 12th. 

My horror+crime novel Blood Crimes on sale for $0.99

Blood Crimes is a genre-bending collision of dark urban fantasy and crime that rides shot-gun with Jim and Carol as they carve a homicidal path cross-country. Jim is infected with the vampire virus. Carol isn't. Yet. But they're united in their hunt for society’s most dangerous predators for Jim's dinner -- so he can feed without harming the innocent. What they don't know is that they're not alone. There are others on their trail, and the climax of Blood Crimes is a shocking jolt of pure mayhem and rock 'n roll violence.

On sale now for $0.99.

For this Halloween season

I might be better known for my crime and mystery fiction, but I've also written a few horror novels should provide the necessary chills and atmosphere for this upcoming Halloween season:

"Classic pulp, noir, and horror--think James N. Cain and Bukowski and Palahniuk--are all ground up in a blender and the result is a nasty, wild, and ultimately redemptive novel that only Dave Zeltserman could write." Paul Tremblay

"A superb mix of humor and horror...Zeltserman orchestrates events perfectly...Readers will keep turning pages to see how the ambiguous plot resolves." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Zeltserman's monster is every bit as eloquent as Shelley's, though his rage is more focused. This is juicy material for Franken-fans, and Zeltserman is just faithful enough to the original that his many fresh contributions feel entirely normal. Well, abnormal, to be accurate, but deliciously so." Daniel Kraus, Booklist (*Starred Review*)

"The story is at once tender, brutal, fantastic, and vibrantly real. A unique and splendid novel" ― Booklist Starred Review

"The sympathy that Zeltserman invokes on behalf of Henry is heartbreaking, and readers will fully believe in both the madness and the greatness of his tragic young hero." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Dave, has managed to meld the two genres of crime and horror into one hell of a ride, PI's, crime lords, drug gangs, sultry babes and more low life scum than you can count all collide with explosive results in this genre bending masterpiece. If you like crime buy this book, if you like horror buy this book, if you like well written books, buy this book." Jim Mcleod, Ginger Nuts of Horror

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

Hell on Sale!

 

On sale for next 2 days for $0.99!