'21 Tales' available today

The trade paperback version of my short story collection, '21 Tales' is being released today.

'inventively depraved' -- New York Magazine

'Dave Zeltserman is one of the crime genre's most accomplished, radical, and innovative talents. His command of style and personal dark vision of the world are framed in the short form to reach out and shake the reader by the throat. I only wish that 21 Tales had been 51 Tales or 101 Tales. We need more of his edgy stories to rattle the field."'–Tom Piccirilli, author of Shadow Season

'Zeltserman’s twisty-tailed gems drag you deep into pulpland, bitch slap you dizzy, and leave you begging for more.'-Roger Smith

'Deadpan and more ruthless than ever, Zeltserman pulls off one clever shocker after another in classic pulp style. Not for the faint-hearted!-Vicki Hendricks

'In a relatively short period of time Dave Zeltserman has established himself as the most relevant author of dark crime fiction working today. As usual, Dave doesn't pull any punches, and his 21 TALES is inventive, nasty, pulpy fun.'-Paul Tremblay

'Dave Zeltserman's stories demonstrate that he's as masterful with the short story as he is with the novel--the same stunning level of craft and the same lacerating vision. This is an important collection.' -Ed Gorman

'Dave Zeltserman’s 21 Stories has enough twists and turns and plot reversals to give O’Henry whiplash. Readers should expect the unexpected. Zeltserman delivers some dark and disturbing fun in these stories.'-Lynn Kostoff

Thanks Bill!

"do yourself a favor and find out for yourself by reading this gripping, intense novel."

I'd like to thank Bill Crider for his review yesterday of The Caretaker of Lorne Field.

Thanks PWA

It was an honor to have my novella, Julius Katz, nominated by the Private Eye Writers of America for best short story given the amazingly talented authors I was nominated with, especially Brendon DuBois who is one of my favorite mystery short story writers, and I'm floored this morning to find that Julius Katz won the Shamus Award last night.

For those wishing to read Julius Katz, you have 6 ways:

You can download a free PDF from Scribd

Purchase a Kindle download for $2.99 from Amazon

Purchase a Nook download for $2.99 from B&N

Purchase for $1.99 from Smashwords

Read it in the upcoming anthology, By Hook or By Crook and 30 More of the Best Crime & Mystery Stories of the Year

Find the Sept/Oct 2009 Double issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine where the story was originally published.

"This might be one of the best books of the year"

Bruce Grossman's review of The Caretaker of Lorne Field is up now on Bookgasm, which for my money is the best review site out there for crime and horror books.

More news. My publisher has recently made Kindle and Nook eBook downloads available for The Caretaker of Lorne Field.

Early Halloween event in Salem next Thursday

Oct. 14th, Paul Tremblay, Christopher Golden, Amber Benson and myself will be signing books and reading original scary Halloween stories at Cornerstone Books in Salem starting at 7 pm, and yes, it's the same Amber Benson who played Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The story I'll be reading is titled "Pink Wiggly Things". Should be a fun night and I hope folks in the area show up (and showing up is the only way you'll find out what 'pink wiggly things' are)!

Somehow this slipped by

Not sure when this Booklist review came out for Killer, but I just found it.

Leonard March is a contract killer and a survivor. Zeltserman develops his protagonist skillfully, building a complex picture of a highly intelligent man forced to examine, test, and confront the boundaries of his self-defined morality. While most of the story is set in the present, following March’s release from a 14-year prison term, it also fluidly moves around in time as March describes the events that have shaped his life within the world of organized crime. He takes pride in his deadly competence and his range of highly specialized skills. Zeltserman’s choice of first-person narrative, chilling but often laced with noir humor, works perfectly, leaving it for the reader to decide if March the man is evil or a soldier doing a job. --Elliott Swanson

"dark and exciting as all hell"

"This is one of those novels, like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, that should be shoved in the hands of young readers to show them that books can be complex thematically while also thrilling at the same time."

The above (slightly edited) quote is from the NerdOfNoir's review of The Caretaker of Lorne Field over at Spinetingler Magazine. The Nerd is one of my favorite reviewers--and not because he tends to like my novels, but because the guy gets at the heart of the matter better than just about anyone out there. When I read his reviews I know I'm getting real insight as to what the book's about. And his profanity-laced reviews can be a blast to read. This one in particular made me smile since he has 15 more uses of profanities in his review than I had in the whole book! Thanks Nerd!

New York Magazine: "inventively depraved"

Here's the cool front and back covers for the upcoming trade paperback version of '21 Tales', which will be coming out Oct. 20th through New Pulp Press (click on the image to enlarge).

And here's where NY Magazine fits '21 Tales' into their weekly matrix.

http://nymag.com/arts/all/approvalmatrix/68708/

15 reasons to read The Caretaker of Lorne Field

With Halloween approaching, here are 15 reasons why you should be reading The Caretaker of Lorne Field with the whole family:

1) delicious horror-ish novel--Newsday

2) Superb mix of humor and horror--Publishers Weekly, starred review

3) superbly crafted horror story--Booklist

4) Harrowing. Zeltserman colors it black with the best of them--Kirkus Reviews

5) a very darkly funny dark fantasy--Locus Magazine

6) a nail-biter--Library Journal

7) truly demented noir-horror monsterpiece--Chauncey Mabe

8) The Caretaker of Lorne Field is a wonderfully weird, gritty, and pitch-dark legend, perfect for New England. Weaved in the compulsively readable narrative is a heavy dose of our current society's meanness, unease, and ambiguity: kind of a nightmare-noir zeitgeist. The thing of it is, the reader is never safe in Dave Zeltserman's hands. I love that. You should too.--Paul Tremblay

9) If Stephen King had a true Noir calling and Peter Straub added contemporary horror... and Dean Koontz threw in his fine depiction of ordinary life on the edge of the unknown... then bring the specter of James M. Cain to write the narrative, you'd come close to describing the whole effect of this stunning slice for the zeitgeist wondrous novel and the writing is... pure dark bliss.--Ken Bruen

10) THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD is one of the most original and compelling books I have read in sometime. It's a horror story, yes. But it is also the stuff of fairy tales, legends, myths. I could not have loved it more.--Patti Abbott

11) The Caretaker of Lorne Field is a magnificent novel, with truly believable characters and suspense that keeps building to an explosive climax. There it is, plain and simple.--Seymour Shubin, Edgar Award finalist, author of Anyone's My Name

12) THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD succeeds as a horror novel, a psychological thriller and a haunting parable, even in some ways that Zeltserman may not have intended. There are dark levels to this work, some of which are immediately evident and others of which reveal themselves only upon later reflection. I don’t know if the book will come to be regarded as a classic, either now or at some point in the future, but it deserves to be.--BookReporter.com

13) In a word--superb--Steven Riddle, A Momentary Taste of Being

14) Book of the Day -- RedRoom.com

15) This is just the kind of book that someday will be on high-school reading lists, and this is the kind of thought-provoking book that will then be challenged by both parents and church leaders, possibly even banned in some ultra-fundamentalist communities. But every reader, and particularly fans of Stephen King, should take a peek into this odd, sad fable. What you find there will forever be a secret between just you and Jack Durkin. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.--Naomi Johnson, Drowning Machine

The Caretaker of Lorne Field: "In a word--superb"

I'd like to thank Steven Riddle over at "A Momentary Taste of Being" for his thoughtful and generous review of The Caretaker of Lorne Field.