Bad Thoughts

A good friend of mine, Laurie Pzena, who is an amazingly talented artist (and did the logo for my web-zine Hardluck Stories), took the photo and made this layout for my Bad Thoughts book cover, and my publisher Five Star has decided to use it. They might end up changing the font, but this is for the most part going to be the cover, and I couldn't be happier about it. I finished going over the copy edits for the book, and it's on track for a July 2007 release. Bad Thoughts is more crime thriller than noir, and is a completely different style than my first book, Fast Lane. Here's the decription from the front cover flap, and a few comments from some authors I respect immensely:

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When he was thirteen years old, Billy Shannon came home from school one day to find his mother being murdered in their California home. Dying slowly of asphyxia, she is drowning in her own blood; a knife protruding from her open mouth and impaling her to the kitchen table. Twenty years pass, and Bill Shannon is a cop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, living with his wife Susie and trying to get a handle on the nightmares that have plagued him for most of his adult life. Every year, as the anniversary of his mother’s death approaches, the nightmares of his mother’s killer, Herbert Winters, get progressively worse until the blackouts come, and then Shannon simply disappears from sight to return home days later without a clue of what he has done while gone. The 20th anniversary of his mother’s death is quickly approaching and Shannon desperately needs to figure out what he has been doing during his black outs, especially since women have recently started dying in the same grisly manner as his mother. His nightmares are getting worse and the evidence against him is stacking up... Everything seems to be pointing to one of two possibilities: Shannon has gone insane or Herbert Winters is back to his old tricks. The problem is if it’s Herbert Winters, then he’s come back from a long way to torment Bill Shannon… back from the grave which Bill Shannon had sent him to twenty years earlier.

Bad Thoughts is reminiscent of Silence of the Lambs and Darkly Dreaming Dexter, a terrifying vision of evil that straddles the razor-thin line between horror and crime. The story will leave readers breathless as it races towards a shocking conclusion that few, if any, could anticipate.

"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 A STOLEN SEASON

"THIS IS HIGH OCTANE NOIR, DAZZLING IN IT'S SHEER VIVACITY........I DIDN'T LIKE THIS BOOK, I ADORED IT" --Shamus-award winning author, Ken Bruen

"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

"I'm not sure I ever truly understood the concept of 'evil' before reading Bad Thoughts. In chilling prose and dialogue, Dave Zeltserman paints a portrait of a serial killer who surpasses Hannibal Lecter in 'creativity' and substitutes astral guile for intellect: a villain who not only toys with his victims' minds but also can enter both his victims' and the hero's dreams. Stunning, though definitely not for the faint of heart."
Jeremiah Healy, author of TURNABOUT and THE ONLY GOOD LAWYER