Black Cat Weekly allows me to write and get published unusual mystery and crime stories that don't fit the standard mystery magazines. In this week's Black Cat Weekly, my story The Roommate is a mystery in both the narrowest and broadest sense. I can't promise that this story will surprise every reader who tries it, but I think it will.
Pariah, which is now for the first time available as a kindle book, was originally published by Serpent's Tail in 2009 and was named that year by the Washington Post as one of the best crime and mystery novels of the year. Here's what critics and authors said about it then:
"A doom-laden crime story that not only makes merry with the justice system, but also satirizes those bottom feeders in the publishing industry who would sign Osama bin Laden to a six-figure contract for his memoirs, if only they could figure out which cave to send their lawyers into. If there's any other young writer out there who does crime noir better than Zeltserman, I don't even want to know... I'd say Zeltserman can't top Pariah for its sheer diabolical inventiveness, but he probably will. And given that the corrupting vision of his work is so powerful, I ought to know better than to read the next novel he writes. But I probably will anyway." -- Maureen Corrigan Washington Post
'as nasty and clever as noir can get" NPR
'Darkly enjoyable' Boston Globe
'Pariah is a terrific blast' Metro (UK)
'Pariah is at turns brutal, violent, and a funny, scathing satire of our celebrity obsessed consumer culture and publishing industry. Really couldn’t put the book down, I poured through it in one day.' Paul Tremblay
"Pariah is the perfect pitch of reality, history crime, celebrity, plagiarism, and sheer astounding writing... If every writer has one great book in them, then Dave can rest easy" -- Ken Bruen
"Mean like bad whiskey and sophisticated like good scotch, Pariah is a rare find and a scorching read" -- Cortright McMeel
"This is a masterpiece" -- Seymour Shubin
"This fusion of hardboiled and bitter satire is brand new territory for noir and I suspect that it will be one of the most talked about novels of 2009" -- Ed Gorman
"This is a book that anyone with even the slightest interest in crime or thriller genres simply must get their hands on, as it's bound to have a huge impact on you" -- The Bookbag
"Small Crimes got a lot of attention for Dave Zeltserman in 2008. This year, Pariah should get even more. If you like hardboiled noir, this book's for you. ..(Pariah) is is fast, furious, and funny. If you have any interest in tough-guy noir, you'll want to get hold of this one as soon as you can" -- Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine.com
"For those who prefer the darker slice of life, Pariah will keep you glued to its pages. The chain reaction of Kyle Nevin's release from prison on the world around him is the stuff of nuclear explosions. Violent, sexual and relentless, there are no holds barred anywhere in this wonderful launch into evil. The meek beware ... be-very-ware" -- Charlie Stella
"White-knuckle ride... a cracking piece of hard-boiled noir... different kinds of venality are put wittily under the microscope as the book rattles along to its terrific conclusion Metro Its noir, its satire, and its Boston that you don't see on Cheers. Nicely done follow-up to SMALL CRIMES." -- BookBitch
"For readers looking for edgy crime fiction, PARIAH fills the bill." -- Booklist
"Dave Zeltserman's Pariah is my pick for crime novel of the year. Tough, relentless, and packed with blunt force trauma... Like the late noir king Jim Thompson, and contemporary crime lords Jason Starr, Allan Guthrie, and Ken Bruen, Zeltserman takes readers on an uneasy ride inside the mind of a homicidal maniac. The story storms, pummels and stomps its way to a nasty ending, but it's the amoral, ruthless voice of Kyle that gives the book such outstanding quality. Pariah is a real winner." -- Hardfeelings
"Pariah is a suspense novel at its very best with a protagonist who is far, far over on the other side of the law. Zeltserman has outdone himself with this depiction of a near-psychopathic personality that is driven by its own strange set of moral principles. The portrayal rings too true." -- John A. Broussard, "I Love a Mystery blog,
"Best mystery of the year? Naaah -- crime writing is so diverse that handing out prizes is beside the point. But we can say this: If you like your crime so hard-boiled you need to bring a chainsaw to breakfast, if you like your morbidity wrapped in a witty and satirical package, if you like your noir (or neo-noir, okay) so black that the pages feel sooty -- then Dave Zeltserman is tops." -- B&N.com
"...just think about Dave Zeltserman, and what a fine addition to the local literary scene he's become Boston Globe Zeltserman's talents as a noir writer rise above the genre's conventions...Pariah is a page-turner, even more so than his earlier novel, Small Crimes Boston Globe Clear crisp prose; fearless portrait of amorality; smart plotting" -- Ed Siegel Boston Globe
Back in 2007, I was pissed that every New York publisher rejected Small Crimes (some of them two or more times), and I got even more pissed seeing publishers paying big money for crappy mobster tell-all books, and my response to this was over a 6-week period writing Pariah in a blind rage. There was another incident that fueled my rage, but I won't mention it here since it became integral in Pariah's plot. Here's one thing I can guarantee you about Pariah--it's unlike any crime novel you'll ever read--it's part hell-on-wheels brutally subversive crime novel and part savage satirical look at the publishing industry.
Nobody other than Serpent's Tail would've ever published Pariah, at least according to an editor at St. Martin's. After NPR had Small Crimes top their list of best crime/mystery novels of 2008, this editor contacted me, asking me why I didn't let him publish Small Crimes (never mind that his boss was one of three St. Martin's editors who rejected Small Crimes), and he wanted to see what I had next, which was Pariah--and his response to it was that no publisher in New York would touch it. Fortunately, Serpent's Tail was in London, and they were all too happy to do so. But even still, I was lucky to see Pariah in print--shortly after Serpent's Tail bought the rights, Profile Books bought Serpent's Tail, and Pete Ayrton (Serpent's Tail's legendary publisher) told me he had to threaten to quit before they'd let him publish it. Still, the ebook was never put out, and starting back in May of this year I contacted Profile Books about obtaining the ebook rights. On October 10th, the rights were granted back to me. And now a kindle version of Pariah is finally available as a Kindle Unlimited book.
This new version has a foreword that Roger Smith originally wrote for the German edition. I also took this opportunity to remove about 95% of the profanity and make a few other line edits to tighten the writing. The original book probably had more profanity per page than any other crime novel ever written--again, I wrote it in a blind rage, and I also wanted it to sound authentic. I'm pretty sure I succeeded in authenticity--I had one of the mob tell-all book co-authors read Pariah, and she told me this was exactly the way they are and speak. But I'm also older and wiser now and being 100% authentic isn't necessarily the goal. As long as the book feels authentic, that's more than good enough. I've also written enough Julius Katz mysteries and other short stories for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine with no profanity where I've grown to prefer that. In any case, there's been a marked decrease in profanity in my writing since Pariah (The Caretaker of Lorne Field I think has one usage, and most of my other novels have little to none.) I couldn't get rid of all of it in Pariah without parts of it sounding false, but as stated above, 95% has been cleaned out.
I'm now writing what I call the Early Julius Katz stories--stories that take place before Julius met Lily Rosten in the first story titled appropriately 'Julius Katz'. Each of these new stories will be inspired to a degree to a different Nero Wolfe novel.
For now, here's a complete list of all the published Julius Katz stories and novels.
Collected in The Julius Katz Collection
Collected in More Julius Katz and Archie PW Starred review
Collected in Detectives and Spies
VICTOR Specter had good reason to be
nervous given the flash drive that he had earlier tucked away in his wallet. If
the authorities were to find that on him he’d be in deep doo doo, to say the
least. His most pressing concern at that moment, though, was the silver
Mercedes sedan three car lengths behind him. He could’ve sworn he’d spotted
that same car when he left Janus Global Enterprises and that must’ve been why
instinctively he’d gotten off the 110 and started driving aimlessly through
downtown Los Angeles. While he didn’t think it likely that Auric Gold would
double-cross him, the guy was a reputed mobster suspected of running half a
dozen criminal enterprises, including laundering money for the Russian mob, and
since ten million dollars was at stake, the thought had crossed his mind that
the Mercedes’s presence was anything but innocent. He knew that Gold wanted the
flash drive. Forget that, Gold needed the documents stored on the drive, and
while he would pay the agreed upon ten-million-dollar price for it, if the
mobster could get it for nothing by having a couple of his hired thugs nabbing
him after he left work, why wouldn’t Gold try that? The guy was a killer, after
all!
Victor
used his rearview mirror to catch another peek of the Mercedes and realized for
the first time that while the driver was a man, his passenger was a woman. So
Gold must have women muscle on his payroll. Why not? The light ahead had turned
yellow. Victor gritted his teeth and without signaling or even glancing over,
swung his car hard into the left lane. The car he had cut off blasted its horn,
but there was no sound of crunching metal. Luckily, he had avoided an accident.
The light turned red and he came to a stop. Once again, he glanced in the rearview mirror. The driver behind him was nearly frothing at the mouth as he
energetically gave him the finger. Fine. Victor didn’t care about that. What he
cared about was that the Mercedes had also moved into the left lane.
As
Victor waited for the light to turn green, he gripped the steering wheel hard
enough that his hands began to ache. He no longer had any doubt that Gold had
sent those two to rip him off. When the light changed, instead of turning left
Victor pushed hard on the gas and shot forward, driving straight on 2nd Street.
He risked another look in the rearview mirror and watched as the Mercedes had
no choice but to take the left turn. Later, Gold’s muscle would circle back and
try to pick him up, but they weren’t going to have any luck with that. Victor
would meet up with Gold later that evening, but it would be on his terms. He
turned right on South Grand Avenue and then another right. He would find a
place to camp out and give the Mercedes time to get hopelessly lost trying to
find him. Besides, after releasing the steering wheel and feeling his hand
shake, he realized that he badly needed a drink.
Eight
minutes later Victor parked half a block away from the Royale Bar. Another nine
minutes and he was sitting at the bar and had drunk half of a double Scotch. By
happenstance, he looked over his left shoulder and caught the eye of a dark
brunette sitting three barstools away. Somehow he hadn’t noticed her until
then, but she was quite attractive, and he found himself staring at her longer than
he should have. Instead of reacting angrily, she flashed him the type of smile
that made him feel weak in the knees. He smiled back at her and watched as she
got off her barstool and ambled over to him.
“Eva,”
she said.
Up
close and seeing her standing, she wasn’t just attractive, she was stunningly
gorgeous. Like a movie star. He took the hand she offered. It was a slender,
delicate hand, and it felt nice in his own.
“Sean,”
he lied, which made no sense. Sometime in the next thirty minutes he would be
heading to LAX and once he arrived there he’d be calling Auric Gold and
arranging to meet him at his gate. It shouldn’t take more than an hour after
that for them to conclude their business. Then at roughly five-forty p.m. he’d
be boarding a flight to Vietnam. So why lie about his name? He had no good
answer for that. But he did know why he wanted her to take the empty barstool
next to him. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, and in the past he had attracted his
share of attractive and cute women, but never anyone like her. That should
change once he had his ten million dollars, but still, this was a first for
him. He glanced past her to notice that she had left behind an empty cocktail
glass. Since he had nothing to lose, he decided to be bold. “You just want me to
buy you a drink,” he said, flashing her a grin.
She
laughed at that and lightly touched his arm. “That’s not the only reason.” She
gestured at the empty barstool. “Mind if I sit?” she asked.
“By all
means.” Victor signaled the bartender to get the woman another drink. The
bartender complied, mixing up a gin martini and bringing it over.
“Whether
it’s gin or vodka, I prefer my martinis stirred and not shaken,” she said. Her
hand was again lightly touching Victor’s arm and he reciprocated by placing his
hand on one of her beautifully shaped legs. The fact that she didn’t seem to
mind had him recalculating how much time he had before he’d have to leave for
the airport.
“I’m
not usually here at—” She gave her watch a quick look. “Two-twenty in the
afternoon drinking martinis, but it was just one of those days where I needed
to get out of the office.” Her smile turned up a notch. “What’s your excuse?”
“I’m
not drinking martinis.”
She
laughed at that. An easy, soft laugh, and Victor found himself mesmerized by it.
He also tried again to reschedule in his mind his next three hours so he could
both deliver the flash drive to Gold and also spend an hour alone with Eva.
“You
know what I mean, smart guy,” she said with a wicked smile. She reached for her
martini and knocked the glass over, the gin and vermouth that had been stirred
together soaking Victor’s pants. He quickly got to his feet so he could inspect
the damage.
She
burst out laughing, but brought her palm to her mouth to cut it off. “I can’t
believe I did that,” she exclaimed, sounding appropriately contrite. She was
quickly off her own barstool and crouching in front of him as she futilely
attempted to scrub at his wet pant.
There
wasn’t much point in what she was doing. He would have to buy a pair of boxer shorts
and pants unless he wanted to spend nineteen hours on a plane in wet clothes,
which meant he wouldn’t be able to juggle his schedule enough to spend any time
alone with her.
“Eva,
what are you doing with him!”
The man who had yelled this had just entered
the Royale. He was about Victor’s height, but far more muscular, and he also
looked borderline homicidal with thick veins streaking his neck. He was also
running straight at them, his hands balled into fists.
Eva
turned away from Victor to confront this man. “Craig, we had broken up!”
Victor
sized up the situation quickly. Craig was intent on doing serious damage to him
and Eva weighing all of 115 pounds would be little more than a speed bump in
slowing the guy down. Victor had to get out of there fast, and since Craig was
between him and the front door, he took off running toward the back entrance.
The adrenaline pumping through him left him nearly breathless as he pushed his
way through the door and stepped out into the alley behind the Royale. An arm
wrapped around him from behind and he was jabbed in the neck with a needle. He
tried yelling for help, but a thick piece of cloth was pushed into his mouth,
gagging him. The arms that held him were like steel bands and every second he
felt weaker. A minute later he was fully conscious but his body sagged as if he
had no control over it.
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.
JULIUS KATZ AND THE RUINED ROAST
AT ten-fourteen a.m. Julius put down the daily edition of the Boston Globe, got up from behind his desk and perused his bookshelves before selecting a biography of the Word War Two spy, Virginia Hall. He had found excuses to turn down the last five potential clients who were desperate to hire him, so why not spend the rest of the day loafing just like he had the past week? Me, I felt a jangling throughout, which I knew from past experience was a sensation akin to nervousness. The reason? It appeared as if my plans were about to go kaput thanks to a late delivery. My first three text messages all got the same response, and my last one went unanswered. Since all I could do was wait, that’s what I did. Two minutes later I would’ve sighed in relief if I had lungs, but since I don’t, I simply imagined myself doing so. Seven seconds after that the doorbell rang.
Julius
ignored the doorbell. He didn’t even bother to ask me to check the outdoor
webcam feed to see who it was. I waited until he turned to the next page of his
book before telling him that three boxes of pastries had been left outside his
door.
Annoyance
tightened his lips for all of 110 milliseconds. “Archie, please explain the
reason for this,” he said with forced patience.
“Nothing
too nefarious,” I said. “I ordered them, although they were supposed to have
been delivered an hour and five minutes ago. You really should retrieve them
before squirrels, or worse, make a meal out of them.”
If
Julius was curious about my motive, he didn’t show it. Instead he took his time
reading another page before telling me in a rather curt tone that I should call
around to find someone who would pick up the food before it attracts pests to
his Beacon Hill townhouse.
“Sure,
if that’s what you want, but it would be a shame. The order is from Lenora’s
Bakery and it includes six of their famous chocolate pecan roses, which are
damned hard to get even though as far as I can tell they’re little more than a
fancy brioche roll baked into the shape of a rose.”
That
got Julius to put his book down. He wasn’t about to give me the satisfaction of
running, but still, he moved at a determined pace to retrieve the pastries,
which was what I expected given all the recent hullabaloo about Lenora’s after
their roses were proclaimed by the Globe’s food critic to be a regional
treasure. Julius would have ordered some himself, except the bakery’s policy
was not to take orders for the roses. Instead it was first come first serve,
and they only baked a few hundred each morning and would sell out within a half
hour of their seven a.m. opening. At that time each morning Julius would be
engaged in his two-hour martial arts workout, which was something he wasn’t
about to forego even for a morning pastry that the critics called beyond exquisite. I got lucky when I
called to wheedle a delivery from them. While Lenora Chapel, the owner of the
bakery, kept the recipe for the roses a well-guarded secret, she suspected that
a recently fired employee had brought her recipe for something called a peach-hazelnut snail to a rival bakery
and wanted to know if this person was working there. A little hacking on my
part proved Lenora correct, which was all her lawyer needed to issue a cease
and desist letter, and hence the delivery this morning.
Julius
waited until he had brought the boxes of pastries safely back to his office and
was able to examine them and verify that the prized rolls were indeed included
before asking how I had managed this.
“A
little wheeling and dealing on my part,” I said. “Nothing for you to be
concerned about.”
Julius’s
eyelids lowered an eighth of an inch. He asked, “Who did you arrange to come
here this morning?”
“Is it
impossible to believe that I got you those roses and other treats out of the
goodness of my heart, even though I don’t have one?”
“Archie,
please, none of this sophistry.”
“Fine.
The four main suspects for the Charlie Lacey murder. They want to hire you.”
That
brought a thin smile to him. “Archie, I am grateful for these pastries, but if
you thought that I would reciprocate by meeting with them, then you need to
recalibrate your neuron network.”
Of
course, I never thought that even for a microsecond. I fully understand how
stubborn Julius is. When the news broke that the comic Charlie Lacey dropped
dead of cyanide poisoning during the middle of his roast at a Cambridge comedy
club, Julius claimed that the reputed mob boss Billy Quinn was the murderer
simply because the news reported that Quinn was in attendance. It didn’t matter
that Quinn was there only because Lacey was his godson and that the police had
ruled him out as a suspect, Julius wasn’t about to admit he had made a mistake.
This was sort of like Schrödinger’s cat—as long as Lacey’s murder wasn’t
solved, Quinn could both be the murderer and not the murderer, and Julius could
be both right and wrong.
“That’s
not what I was thinking,” I told Julius. “I wanted to get you those roses
because I knew how much you wanted them, especially since they’ll be a nice
surprise for Lily when she gets back from visiting her parents. But I did think
the gesture would soften you up enough to listen to reason. Forget the
publicity you’d get from this case, the four suspects coming here are willing
to put a hundred grand in escrow for you simply agreeing to take the case,
which works out to 57,550 dollars after taxes, and that should be enough for you
to make the winning bid for a bottle of 1990 Domaine Georges & Christophe
Roumier Musigny Grand Cru that goes up for auction this Saturday.”
That
got Julius’s attention, as well it should since this was a vintage he’d been
trying to acquire for years. He contemplated the matter for all of three point
two seconds before telling me that a twenty-five thousand dollar bid should be
sufficient.
“That
might be true,” I said. “That’s what the wine is supposed to be worth, but the
last bottle that went up for auction sold for 52,500 dollars. But whether you’d
have to pay twenty-five grand or more for that fermented bottle of grape juice
is irrelevant since you can’t pay that much and also cover your next two
months’ expenses unless you cut out your expensive dinners at Le Che Cru with
Lily and skip the illegal poker game next Friday at Phil Weinstein’s restaurant
and its ten grand buy-in.”
Julius’s
tone held a petulant note as he said, “You’re assuming I’ll be losing my buy-in
instead of walking away from the game with substantial winnings.”
“Yeah,
I know, you’re a world-class poker player, and you should clean and fillet the
guppies you’ll be playing with, but luck’s a funny thing, especially bad luck,
and I remember nights when you’ve done everything right and still busted out.
If you’d like I can provide you specifics.”
Julius
sat stone-faced while he drummed the fingers on his right hand against his
desk’s surface, which was always a clear sign that he was annoyed with me.
“Blast it,” he said after five point seven seconds of drumming. “I already told
you who the murderer is.”
“Yeah,
I know. Billy Quinn. The video recording of the roast that the police took
custody of hasn’t helped them make an arrest. Maybe if I were able to find it,
you’d pinpoint where it showed Quinn poisoning Lacey’s drink, but I’ve hacked
all of the Cambridge Police Department’s computers, and I can’t find the video
recording on any of them. So prove the impossible and earn yourself that
hundred grand.”
Julius
brooded for the next eight point three seconds, but from the way he grimaced he
must’ve decided that he wanted the bottle of Grand Cru more than the luxury of
spending his time goofing off, and even more than opening up the box with his
own version of Schrödinger’s cat and having to admit that his earlier
ill-formed opinion was wrong.
He
asked, “Archie, when will that mob be descending on my door?”
Four
comics were now a mob? I didn’t argue the point and instead told him that they
were scheduled to arrive in eight minutes.
He cast
a glum look at the box filled with Lenora’s acclaimed roses. “That doesn’t
leave me enough time to properly appreciate one of them,” he said.
“Yeah,
well, I’m sorry about that. As I told you the delivery was late.” I simulated
taking a breath and holding it, which for me was pausing my central processing
unit for fifty milliseconds, then said, “There’s still time for me to cancel
the meeting if you want.”
Julius’s
expression turned glummer, but otherwise he didn’t bother to answer me. He got
up from his chair and brought the boxes of pastries to his kitchen.
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
