My books making Best of the Year lists

National Public Radio's Top 5 Crime and Mystery novels of 2008
Washington Post's Best Books of 2008
Bookgasm's 10 That Were Great in 2008

Washington Post's Best Books of 2009
 Bookgasm Top Crime in 2009

American Library Association short list for best horror novel of 2010
Black Quill nominee for best dark genre book of 2010

WBUR (NPR Boston) 10 best books of 2012

More of my ebooks: Action + Suspense

I'm not quite sure how to categorize all those great Parker books from Richard Stark (Donald Westlake). Crime thrillers? Men's adventure? Suspense & action? Each of the books center around a crime, but it's a crime that Parker and his crew are going to be pulling off, and the twists usually come in how things get screwed up for them, so calling them crime thrillers doesn't seem quite right.  But whatever category you want to call them, my Hunted novellas would be in the same category, although in these there's the added ingredient of government conspiracy. So far I have two of these available as ebooks--THE HUNTED and THE DAME, and a 3rd one, THE INTERLOPER, has been written and should be available later this year.  While THE HUNTED AND THE DAME are novellas at 85 and 100 pages respectively, THE INTERLOPER is more size of a Gold Medal novel.

The series kicks off with THE HUNTED, which author Vincent Zandri calls ""dark tour-de-force of non-stop action and tension." THE HUNTED is available for $3.25.

The second in the series is THE DAME, which author Evan Lewis says of it: "Everything Dave Zeltserman writes is gold, and his new Hunted series is no exception." THE DAME is available for $3.25.

Look for THE INTERLOPER later this year.

More of my ebooks: short story collections

21 TALES features 21 of my early stories. MONEY RUN, which is a con man story filled with double and triple crosses is probably my funnest story and was my first story published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. CLOSING TIME and DAVE STEVENS, I PRESUME were originally published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.A LONG TIME TO DIE was my first published story, and was originally in New Mystery Magazine with a terrific illustration by Lucien Freud (yes, that Lucien Freud!). NEXT TIME was originally published in Hardboiled Magazine, FOREVER AND EVER in Hot Blood #12, ADRENALINE in Out of the Gutter, NINE-BALL LESSONS in Bullet Magazine, ALMOST HUMAN and VIEW FROM THE MIRADOR in Futures Magazine. The rest of the stories, including MORE THAN A SCAM, which was probably the first  Nigerian email scam story and a notable story in Best American Mystery Stories, were published on a number of web-zines. New York Magazine called this collection "inventively depraved". Tom Piccirilli said of 21 TALES: "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."21 TALES is available for $3.99.

ONE ANGRY JULIUS & OTHER STORIES features my 3rd Julius Katz story, ONE ANGRY JULIUS AND ELEVEN BEFUDDLED JURORS, as well as five other very different types of crime stories, including Thriller Award nominee, A HOSTAGE SITUATION, and notable story from Best American Mystery Stories, EMMA SUE. This ebook is available for $3.25.

More of my ebooks: Lighthearted mysteries

"Mystery readers: I never miss a Julius Katz mystery. A great series. Simply the best." David Kanell, owner of Kingdom Books, Waterford Vermont, specializing in mysteries and crime novels.

My Julius Katz mystery stories and novel are very different from my crime novels. They're certainly not cozies, just as Nero Wolfe and Sherlock Holmes books aren't cozies, but the stories were written for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine so there's no profanity (unlike PARIAH which has possibly more profanity per page than any other crime novel!), there's no sex, and there's minimal onscreen violence--and the little that's there is bloodless. What drives these stories is the relationship between the brilliant and eccentric (and lazy) Julius Katz and his assistant, Archie, as well as humor. I think it's safe to say that Archie, who narrates these stories, is one of the more unusual detective sidekicks in the annals of the mystery genre.

JULIUS KATZ MYSTERIES is made up of the first two stories in this series, and as the cover states, my novella, JULIUS KATZ, ended up winning the Shamus Award for best PI story, as well as the Derringer Award for best novella, and ARCHIE'S BEEN FRAMED won Ellery Queen's Reader's Choice Award (as well as being cited by Publisher's Weekly as the best story in the best mysteries of the year collection, THE INTERROGATOR AND OTHER CRIMINALLY GOOD FICTION). Timothy Hallinan, author of THE QUEEN OF PATPONG, said of JULIUS KATZ MYSTERIES: "I love these stories." This ebook is available for $2.99.

I wrote the full-length novel JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE after ARCHIE'S BEEN FRAMED. Paul Levine, author of FLESH & BONES, said of this book: "It's a nifty change-of-pace for the usually hard-boiled Dave Zeltserman. Clever, sophisticated and witty, Julius Katz and Archie will thrill fans of Nero Wolfe...and readers who never heard of him! Zeltserman knows how to mix character, action, and plot and create a pitch-perfect, modern mystery. More, Sir! The sooner the better." Edgar-award winning author Naomi Hirahara said: "Fans of Donna Andrews's Turing Hopper artificial intelligence mysteries, rejoice! Award-winning author Dave Zeltserman has created silicon chip Archie, the high-tech sidekick to Julius Katz, Boston's most famous and laziest wine-drinking detective. Here is a delightful traditional mystery that follows in the footsteps of Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey series." JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE is available for $4.50.

This collection has my 3rd Julius Katz story published by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, ONE ANGRY JULIUS AND ELEVEN BEFUDDLED JURORS, as well as five other crime stories. I'll talk more about this one when I talk about my short story collections, but this is available for $3.25.

Will there be more Julius Katz stories? Yep. Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine recently published ARCHIE SOLVES THE CASE, and has also bought my 5th Julius Katz story, JULIUS ACCUSED for future publication. A 6th story has also been written.

More of my ebooks: Horror

I've got four very different types of horror ebook novels: quiet, explosive, gothic Frankenstein-retelling, and a thriller that straddles the line between horror and crime.

THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD is my quiet horror novel. It was short listed for best horror novel of 2010 by the American Library Association and was a Black Quill nominee for best dark genre book of the year. Publisher's Weekly in a starred review called it "a superb mix of humor and horror". Booklist called it a "superbly crafted horror story." Overlook Press has made it available for $12.99.

The best way to describe BLOOD CRIMES is think of Pulp Fiction mixed with vampires--and the vampires here are not sparkly ones! This is a full blown horror, crime and noir. Ed Gorman said of BLOOD CRIMES: '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?' BLOOD CRIMES is available for $3.99.

MONSTER was picked by WBUR Radio (NPR BOSTON) as one of the 10 best novels of 2012, and is a gothic retelling of Frankenstein. Or is it also a gothic retelling of 120 Days of Sodom? Booklist in a starred review said of MONSTER: "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." Overlook Press has made MONSTER available for $11.99.

BAD THOUGHTS is one of the two novels included in THE SHANNON NOVELS, which I included as one of my ebook crime thrillers. Edgar-winner Steve Hamilton said of BAD THOUGHTS: "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." BAD THOUGHTS is available for $3.99.

Five crime thriller ebooks to check out!

I've got a lot of different type of ebooks out: crime thrillers, horror, suspense, charming lighthearted mysteries, and short story collections. Today I'll be talking about my crime thrillers.

Serpent's Tail has put out the 3rd book in my 'man out of prison' noir series, KILLER, currently $5.99 on Amazon. Publisher's Weekly said of KILLER: "Spare prose and assured pacing place this above most other contemporary noirs."

Serpent's Tail has put out my explosive crime heist novel, OUTSOURCED, currently $5.99 on Amazon. NPR's Fresh Air said of OUTSOURCED: "a dark gem of a story...a macabre delight to read". OUTSOURCED is currently in film development by Impact Pictures.
 

BAD THOUGHTS and BAD KARMA were originally published as hardcovers by Five Star, and I've put them both together as THE SHANNON NOVELS for $4.99. Edgard-winner Steve Hamilton said of BAD THOUGHTS: "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.", while Bookgasm called BAD KARMA "top-notch P.I. reading."

My first novel, FAST LANE, was originally published by Point Blank Press in 2003, and I've made it available now for $3.99. This is a pretty wild one, and is not at all what it appears. Ken Bruen said of FAST LANE: "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.

Overlook Press has made A KILLER'S ESSENCE (currently in film development by Braven Films) available for $10.99. The Boston Globe said of A KILLER'S ESSENCE: "Zeltserman’s lean but muscular style, so evident in “Killer’’ and “The Caretaker of Lorne Field,’’ is just as sharply honed here. His ability to juggle Green’s story and Lynch’s, develop a riveting murder mystery, and even mix in some Brighton Beach ex-KGB sleazeballs, all in less than 250 pages, is a pretty neat page-turning trick."

Honored to be included

I'm honored to have Monster mentioned on this list of recommended horror novels from the Lawrence W. Tyree Library at Santa Fe College, which also has many of my favorite authors, including Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Richard Matheson, and Mary Shelley.

Thinking about Amy

There’s no question that my sister was the best of my family. Beautiful, smart, generous and selflessly driven to help others, Amy also ended up with mom’s boundless energy. Myself, I inherited a little bit of my mom’s drive , but I mostly tend towards my dad’s more slothful nature. Since my brother is now a lawyer, I’ll just say he’s also more like my dad. But my sister was something completely different.

During the first Gulf War, Amy was a captain in the army and was one of the first US soldiers in Iraq where she was responsible for setting up the army’s medical labs. There was an accident where a jeep overturned in a minefield, and Amy risked her life to save the people involved. She was a recipient of the Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award, and when she returned from Iraq, the army sent her to work on her Master’s Degree in Medical Lab Technologies. While she was fulltime at school, she joined the Big Sister program, was helping out local hospitals in improving their medical labs, as well as being involved in several environmental charities.

My sister’s one failing was during a bad point when she was a teenager and suffering low self-esteem, she let this utterly worthless piece of shit (who I’ll refer to in the rest of this simply as UWPOS) get himself entrenched in her life, and later she let UWPOS convince her to marry him. UWPOS was a low-level con who peddled drugs and was involved in other lowlife behavior, which he unfortunately was able to hide from my sister. When Amy went to Iraq, UPWOS got more emboldened in his activities. Before the war, Amy was stationed in San Antonio, and my parents moved there to be with her. One day after Amy had left to Iraq, UWPOS invited my parents for a day trip, during the course of which my sister’s brand new jeep (which she bought right before the war and was the first new car she ever owned) was stolen. It turns out UWPOS had arranged the jeep to be stolen, and used my parents as unwitting alibis. The police caught him, though, when he was chopping the jeep for parts, but instead of notifying my sister, they made him a snitch, and my sister never found out about it.

Twenty years ago Amy was supposed to come up and stay with me the day before Mother’s day so that we could all take my mom out. She didn’t come, and she didn’t answer her phone. While Amy was in school in New England, UWPOS was supposed to be finishing up his college degree in San Antonio—at least that’s what he convinced my sister. In fact, Amy was planning to buy him a sailboat as a graduation present. Of course, he was never in college—it was just a con he had sold my sister—and he was instead simply doing his lowlife criminal shit. But as I mentioned before, he had gotten emboldened. Several weeks before Mother’s Day he was trolling other lowlifes at bars in San Antonio, trying to find someone to help him murder my sister. He found one. The Friday before Mother’s Day 1993 he drove up from Texas with his POS accomplice and murdered Amy. Two women sharing an apartment above where Amy was living heard my sister screaming for help for over five minutes but didn’t bother calling the police. They never gave the police or DA a reason why they didn’t do this. Supposedly UWPOS killed Amy for her life insurance, and while that was part of it, I’m sure he did it more because it was killing him how well Amy was doing in life while he was nothing but a miserable lowlife UWPOS.

Twenty years later it’s still maddening when I think of all the ways Amy could still be alive if someone had acted with just a tiny bit of human decency. If the San Antonio police had notified Amy about UWPOS stealing her jeep. If those neighbors had called the police. If one of those lowlifes UWPOS approached to help him had called the police. But none of that happened. 

Bad Thoughts was the first thing I wrote after Amy’s death, and I started the first draft in 1996. It was too bleak and grim and violent a book to dedicate to my sister’s memory, but it was the most personal book I wrote. All my rage and anguish over Amy went into the book. Astral projection plays a key role in it, and after Amy’s death I read several books and took classes in the subject. I badly wanted to learn how to do it, if it was at all possible, for the obvious reason. The techniques that the books and classes gave were basically waking yourself up after a few hours of sleep (when you’d be most susceptible to having an OBE—Out of Body Experience), and then giving yourself the suggestion that you’re going to leave your body safely. I had several experiences where I was obviously dreaming that I was leaving my body. It had that unreal dreamlike quality to it. But then I had one experience that was very different. In this one I felt that ripping-out-of-my-body sensation that the books and classes talked about, and then it was as if I was hanging over my bed in this hyper-sense of reality with nothing at all dream-like about it. As I hung over the bed I was afraid I was going to fall to the floor and wake up my wife, and all at once it was as if I was sucked back into my body. Was this a real OBE or did I self-hypnotize myself to believe I was having one? Hell if I know. I quit trying soon after that. It was doing a number on my sleeping, and I was working at the time as a software engineer, and I couldn’t go to work exhausted every day. I figured if the books were right, I’d have my chance to see Amy again later.

It took ten years before I could talk about Amy to my closest friends. The thought of ever writing something like even a couple of years ago wouldn’t have seemed possible. But she’s been on my mind so much lately, and I’ve had this compulsion to write this. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s because the twenty year anniversary of Amy’s death is approaching. Maybe it’s because with both my parents now gone, there’s no one really left to talk about Amy. Maybe it’s because it’s because I want her to exist, even if it’s only in a blogpost.

Stuttgarter-Zeitung (translated) review of Pariah

(my good friend Alan Luedeking translated the following review which appeared in the Stuttgarter-Zeitung)

On a trip to New York Kyle Nevin gets in a bad mood. Just so, after eight years of incarceration, he recently goes free again alone through Central Park at night in the hopes of getting mugged by someone. More “would be better” as the first person narrator of Pariah says. Yes, this habitual criminal from South Boston solves not only money problems but also emotional crises by force.

In “Pariah” a huge rage ferments. Kyle wants to revenge himself upon Red Mahoney, his former boss, who betrayed him to the FBI and then disappeared. The author Dave Zeltserman first gives Kyle a tunnel vision, an energy, an unfrayed speech that reminds us of the classics of hardboiled literature. But he refrains from using Kyle’s hardness as a massive shell for a good core, as we are used to in some hardboiled heroes. The egomaniac Kyle, among whose fondest youthful memories consist of beatings of innocent passersby pokes evil fun at himself over this stereotype.

The only rule of courtesy: shut up

Zeltserman is so refined as to very gradually pull the carpet out from under us readers’ feet. Kyle complains initially about the moral decay in South Boston, over the loss of backbone and decency inflicted by Mahoney. Based on these tirades the reader might liken the narrator to a Tarzan of the slums and thus begin to like him as someone who within his brutal world still possesses some values and like all of us suffers from the shrinkage of values. But as to honor among thieves Kyle only understands shutting up when it comes to the dealing with the police.

He is in the worst way egotistical and bullying his raw charm only a means to an end, and whatever love for his brother he evinces only lasts as long as his acts as Kyle wishes. “Pariah” is a monstrous book of self-righteousness in which Kyle propounds the grossest atrocities as the only possible means of behaving.

Blood sells itself finely

But Zeltserman does not dismantle him easily, in a beautiful sleight [or twist (of plot)] he lets the blood tainted fall into the clutches of the publishing business which best knows how to market the creepiness of such types.

When the miserable underworld of South Boston and the lacquered publishing world of New York meet, then Zeltserman doesn’t only ridicule the media and cultural norms. He often puts in question exactly that which he himself bravely peddles, namely the conversion of criminality and horror into thrillers. Whoever reads “Pariah” cannot simply browse away in fascination but must answer his own questions as to why he actually does.

Introducing THE SHANNON NOVELS

I wrote two novels featuring Bill Shannon, BAD THOUGHTS and BAD KARMA, both originally published as hardcovers by Five Star. I've now put them together as a single kindle ebook.

Bad Thoughts was the second novel I wrote (FAST LANE being the first), and it's my grimmest and bleakest book, as well as maybe my most gripping and intense. The book takes place in the Boston area and, in keeping with the grim outlook of the book, it takes place during the winter months with the weather throughout being bitterly cold, often with sleeting rain. Shannon is a Cambridge police detective who sees his marriage disintegrating, and well as possibly his sanity. To say that Shannon goes through hell in this book is a massive understatement. Even with all the craziness and horror in Bad Thoughts, at its core it's a book about surviving abuse.

Bad Karma was the fifth book I wrote (between OUTSOURCED and THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD), and it's a very different book than Bad Thoughts--even the genres are different, with Bad Thoughts being a mix of horror and crime and Bad Karma being hardboiled PI. While Bad Thoughts might at its core be about surviving abuse, Bad Karma at its core is about healing yourself and moving on in life.

Bad Karma takes place five years later and has moved the action to Boulder, Colorado, with Shannon now working as a PI. The novel takes place during the summer: the weather's sunny, Shannon has reconciled with his wife, and both of them happier and more in love than ever. But just as the weather changes dramatically three-quarters of the way into the book, so does the brutal violence that rolls in. The last 70 or so pages are probably as gripping as anything I've written. Bad Karma also intersects with Outsourced and Fast Lane. The theme of white collar workers (specifically software engineers) being obsoleted and discarded that was written about in Outsourced is carried on in Bad Karma.  Shannon also meets up on the hard streets of Denver with one of the central characters from Fast Lane.

What drove the plot of Bad Karma were two ideas--one, an idea that I tried to write as a short story but just could never get to work right in that form, the other, some people I knew signed up for what they thought were yoga classes at a suburban shopping area with an organization that major news outlets have called a cult in their reports.

As different as both of these books are, they fit well together, both thematically, and because of what Shannon went through in Bad Thoughts you want to see this happier version of his life. And as different as these books are, they're not only connected by Shannon but certain metaphysical elements. With Bad Thoughts, astral projection plays a significant role, and while the metaphysical aspects are more subdued in Bad Karma, they're still there.

Here's what some people said about these books when they were originally published:

"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 THE LOCK ARTIST


"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 Booknews

"Detective Bill Shannon is back and a welcome return it is." Booklist, Elliot Swanson

"top-notch P.I. reading" Bookgasm