So you like noir?

If you like noir -- real noir, where nothing is watered down -- then I got some books for you:

"The plot of Small Crimes ricochets out from this claustrophobic opening, and it's a thing of sordid beauty." NPR, best crime and mystery novels of 2008

"spare but ingeniously twisted and imbued with a glossy coating of black humor." Washington Post's Best Books of 2008

"Zeltserman's breakthrough third crime novel deserves comparison with the best of James Ellroy" Publisher's Weekly, starred review

Buy SMALL CRIMES now

"If there's any other young writer out there who does crime noir better than Zeltserman, I don't even want to know." Washington Post, Best Books of 2009

"as nasty and clever as noir can get" NPR

"Darkly enjoyable... clear, crisp prose; his fearless portrait of amorality; and his smart plotting... what a fine addition to the local literary scene he’s become." Boston Globe

"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." Ken Bruen, author of THE GUARDS

Buy PARIAH now

"Spare prose and assured pacing place this above most other contemporary noirs." Publisher's Weekly

"Dave Zeltserman is at it again writing about ex-con antiheroes with the kind of panache that would make Jim Thompson, king of the psycho killer novels, proud." Boston Globe

"With graphic imagery and exciting twists, this novel is impossible to put down and has a surprising ending. A brilliant read." Aberdeen Press & Journal

"Killer is a major novel of crime." Ed Gorman

Buy KILLER now

"A small gem of crime fiction" Booklist

"a dark gem of a story...a macabre delight to read" NPR

"A dark, lightening-paced read" Financial Times

"Zeltserman’s nifty bit of neo-noir is damned decent fun" DIG Boston

Buy OUTSOURCED now

"Tough, violent amoral with that compelling first narrative that has you rooting for a lunatic and crazy he is, in the most entertaining debut since, well, Jim Thompson." Ken Bruen, author of THE GUARDS

"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

"In the last few years there have been a number of writers, such as Ken Bruen and Victor Gischler, who've taken the classic PI novel and tweaked the hell out of it, creating something fresh and unique. Add Dave Zeltserman to the list. Several pages into his debut, I knew that I was reading something special." Poisoned Pen's Book News, Hardboiled Crime Club Selection

Buy FAST LANE now

"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 winner for The Lock Artist

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

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

Buy BAD THOUGHTS now

Blood Crimes is something very different from me. It has vampires (although not the sparkly kind), and it's a heavy mix of horror and crime, but it's still very much noir.

"This is one of the few fresh takes on vampirism I've read in years. It's as if Charles Bukowski sat down and said, OK, Bram Stoker, how about this?" -- Ed Gorman, author of Cage of Night and The Poker Club.

Zeltserman, a noir author from deep in his bones, has always flirted with horror--his Caretaker of Lorne Field ranks as one of the best novels in that category back in 2010. Blood Crimes goes over the retaining wall and into the dark woods, throwing in delightful twists on reliable tropes... These aren't your sister's romantic vampires, to say the least." Harry Shannon, author of Memorial Day

"The prolific and wildly talented Dave Zeltserman serves up a fast, furious, frightening and (yes)funny orgy of bloodletting. Makes "Grindhouse" look like "Little House on the Prairie." Roger Smith, author of Mixed Blood and Dust Devils

Buy Blood Crimes now

The Sheriff of Boomtown

Hearing about Rex Trailer passing away made me think back about when I was Sheriff of Boomtown. Trailer hosted a local Boston TV show called Boomtown that was on the air here from '56 to -74. One year for my sister's birthday (I think she was 7 which would've made me 10) she got tickets for the show, and my parents told me I had to go on the show with her to watch over her. One of the show's bits would be picking one of the kids to be Sheriff. They'd have another kid photographed in a Wanted poster in costume, and the Sheriff's role would be to pick out the wanted kid out of a parade of all the kids in the audience. The Sheriff never picked the right kid --he'd always end up picking out someone who didn't look remotely like the costumed outlaw, and coming off as a doofus in the process. When they picked me to be the Sheriff, I told them no thanks, but they told me too bad, I was it, and of course like every other Sheriff, I picked out a kid who didn't look anything like the wanted disguised kid. Here's why. On TV the parade of kids looks like it goes on forever, on the show, they didn't put you in position to pick out your target until at least 3/4s of the kids had already walked by. In other words, it was fixed! Since you have to pick someone, you end up just grabbing one of the kids at random., and every kid watching at home ends up thinking, what a doofus! 

Now my sister, probably because it was her birthday, got picked for this really sweet contest--the one that every kid who watched the show would dream of being picked for. They had a board filled with balloons, and each balloon has a slip of paper inside indicating a gift, like a bike or toy of some type, and whatever balloons you pop with 3 darts you win the corresponding gifts. When you watched it at home you would dream of being picked and tossing the darts up so they'd fall and pop 3-4 balloons each. With my sisters 3 darts, she hit Trailers sidekick Billy with one of them, and completely missed the balloons with the other 2 (I think one of of them hit the balloons sideways). So we got to take home Sidekick Billy, but she didn't get any toys out of it. Sidekick Billy, who on TV looked 80 but was just a 20 something year-old guy with a lot of makeup, was my sister's responsibility since she won him, but she was only 7, and after a few weeks of not watering or feeding him, we found him dead in the basement. Rex Trailer got a new sidekick after that, but I can't remember what this new guy's name was.

Monster #3 on NPR Boston's Best Books of 2012

Monster is at #3 on NPR Boston's 10 Best Books of 2012

The Hunted -- Free Today!

"Stark meets Ludlum meets Forsyth in this tight and tricky opener to a new novella series from the always-innovative Dave Zeltserman. The set-up is all too contemporary (unemployment, economic woes, rogue capitalists) but the spare prose and rollercoaster pace hark back to the glory days of Gold Medal Books: the paperback originals that changed 20th century publishing, just as e-originals like Zeltserman's Dan Willis series are changing the game today." Roger Smith, author of Dust Devils and Wake Up Dead

"The Hunted rockets along, never boring for a second... of interest to the Parker fan who is in the mood for an exciting, entertaining, and efficient read somewhat along the lines of the Grandmaster’s darker material." The Violent World of Parker

Download The Hunted now for free!

Blood Crimes, Fast Lane & Bad Thoughts on sale!

From now thru Sunday (Dec. 16th) Kindle downloads for Blood Crimes, Fast Lane and Bad Thought are all on sale.

Buy now for $0.99

 

"I've just read the manuscript of Dave Zeltserman's new novel, Blood Crimes. This is one of the few fresh takes on vampirism I've read in years. It's as if Charles Bukowski sat down and said, OK, Bram Stoker, how about this?" Ed Gorman, author of Cage of Night and The Poker Club

"I'd call it the anti-Twilight, and in my book that's a good thing." Bill Crider, author of Sheriff Dan Rhodes series

"The prolific and wildly talented Dave Zeltserman serves up a fast, furious, frightening and (yes) funny orgy of bloodletting. Makes "Grindhouse" look like "Little House on the Prairie." Roger Smith, author of Vile Blood and Dust Devils

Buy now for $2.99

"For those of us who believed Jim Thompson would never be equaled, great tidings, he's back in the form of Dave Zeltserman. Hilarious in the darkest fashion, violent, bitter, psychotic and unputdownable... FAST LANE left me bruised, battered and exhilarated ... Tough, violent amoral with that compelling first narrative that has you rooting for a lunatic and crazy he is, in the most entertaining debut since, well, Jim Thompson." Ken Bruen, author of The Guards

 "In the last few years there have been a number of writers, such as Ken Bruen and Victor Gischler, who've taken the classic PI novel and tweaked the hell out of it, creating something fresh and unique. Add Dave Zeltserman to the list. Several pages into his debut, I knew that I was reading something special." Poisoned Pen's Book News, Hardboiled Crime Club Selection

"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

Buy now for $2.99

"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 winner for The Lock Artist

"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

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

 

Amazing video

My book covers: Outsourced (Suhrkamp)

I find this 3-D effect of the book cover as a bank vault being opened amazingly clever and just brilliant. There's a somewhat long story for why the title for the German edition is '28 Minutes' instead of Outsourced.

When I was trying to sell the novel, I had far more enthusiasm in Hollywood than I did with NY publishers who were afraid back in 2004 that outsourcing wouldn't be an issue of interest to the public by 2005. Hollywood was different as I had a high-level Hollywood producer pushing this hard and eventually getting a deal in 2008 with Impact Pictures and Constantin Film. By this point I had changed the title to '28 Minutes', stripped out a good amount of the outsourcing commentary, and made the book more into a pure bank heist thriller. Serpent's Tail ended up buying this version, and the title was going to be '28 Minutes', but the film people decided they were going to keep the Outsourced title (which has since changed to avoid confusion with the short-lived TV show), and so Serpent's Tail went back to Outsourced.

Suhrkamp also came up with a second edition of the book, and for this cover they use a safe deposit box that had been violently ripped open. Another excellent cover from them!

My book covers: Outsourced

Serpent's Tail's choice of cover for Outsourced is an interesting one. It's hip and cool and witty, and I understand why Serpent's Tail used it, but it also hides that the book is as violent and dark as it is. Computers aren't used to rob the bank, as the cover implies. Guns are used, and it's a violent robbery, and the aftermath is as bloody and violent as anything in Small Crimes, Pariah or Killer.

"a dark gem of a story...a macabre delight to read" NPR

"A dark, lightening-paced read" Financial Times

"A small gem of crime fiction" Booklist

"Bodies mount up as the double dealing and revenge gather apace. The blurb on the book describes it as a "fast-paced, edge-of-your seat crime novel," and it really does live up to the hype. Add this to your holiday reading list for a piece of escapism." Morning Star

"And here again, Zeltserman manages to tell a riveting story in the straightforward, personality-driven manner at which he’s so accomplished. There’s no purple in his prose even though he obviously has learned lessons of the genre from masters like Jim Thompson." Boston Globe

My book covers: Killer (PulpMaster)

PulpMaster has come up with another work of art. For the German edition of Killer, the cover plays up the quieter, more meditative aspects of the book, which fits well since Killer is very much a meditation into the mind of a killer.

NPR's review of Outsourced

I've taken the audio of NPR's review of Outsourced and added an assortment of my book covers to it to make this video.