First 24 chapters of The Coleridge Project now up

 

The first 24 chapters of my thriller The Coleridge Project are now up at davezeltserman.substack.com

First 20 chapters of The Coleridge Project

 

The first 20 chapters of my political/tech thriller, The Coleridge Project are now up on my free substack.

You're known by the company you keep

 

Any day I share a list with Shirley Jackson and Ray Bradbury is a good day!

Sweet Screams: 13 Creepy-Cute Stories to Read in the Dark

Chapter 16 now up

 

Chapter 16

First 15 Chapters

 The first 15 chapters of my thriller The Coleridge Project are now available.

The first 14 chapters of The Coleridge Project are now up

 

Read the first 14 chapters of my thriller The Coleridge Project now on davezeltserman.substack.com

 

The first 12 chapters are now up on davezeltserman.substack.com for my thriller The Coleridge Project.

First 10 chapters of The Coleridge Project now available

 

The first 10 chapters are now available at davezeltserman.substack.com

First 9 chapters now available

 

The first 9 chapters of my thriller The Coleridge Project are now up on davezeltserman.substack.com. 

The Coleridge Project: Chapter 7

 

Chapters 1- 7 now available.

The Coleridge Project: Chapter 6

 

Chapter 6

The Coleridge Project: Chapter 5

 

Chapter 5

The Coleridge Project: Chapter 4

 

Chapter 4

The Coleridge Project: Chapter 3

 

Chapter 3

The Coleridge Project: Chapter 2

 

Chapter 2.

The Coleridge Project: Chapter 1

 

Chapter 1

The Coleridge Project: Prologue

 

The Coleridge Project

Introduction to my Morris Brick crime thrillers

 

When Michaela Hamilton approached me about writing a serial killer series for Kensington Books, I used John Lutz’s brilliant Frank Quinn series as inspiration for what would become my Morris Brick series. What particularly drew me to the Frank Quinn books was the clever plotting, how Lutz used chapters to flash back to the killer’s earlier life to explore the killer’s evolution, the way the team of investigators working with Frank were an extended family complete with sniping, jibes, and true caring, and how Lutz made the victims flesh and blood instead of cardboard cutouts so we’d care about them and dread what would be happening.

I named my detective Morris after a favorite uncle, and I gave him the name Brick, because like my uncle, my detective would have a short, compact body, in short, “built like a brick.” The Frank Quinn series takes place in NYC whereas my Morris Brick series takes place in Los Angeles, and not just so Morris and Frank Quinn wouldn’t compete to catch the same perpetrators! Hollywood and the drive for fame (or infamy) are an integral part of this series. At heart, I’m a crime fiction writer, and these books, particularly The People We Kill, The Lives We Take, and The Pain We Bring are filled with criminal activity and its consequences.

Now that I have the rights back for this series, I’m publishing the books under my own name instead of the Jacob Stone pseudonym, with the titles I had originally wanted, and with cover art that I feel better captures the dark nature of these books. While I’m not promising now that there will be more Morris Brick full-length novels in the future, several Morris Brick short stories have been published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and I do expect to write more of these.

All five books will be released June 10th as Kindle books and are available now for preorder.

crime thriller series available for preorder

Kensington originally published these books using a "Jacob Stone" pseudonym. I have the e-book rights back, and all five books in the series are now available for preorder.

Introduction for Buxton and Other Stories

 The Introduction for my new short story collection Buxton and Other Stories:

One of the definitions Merriam-Webster gives for fantastic is ‘conceived or seemingly conceived by unrestrained fancy.’ Another is ‘so extreme as to challenge belief.’ Since all the stories in this collection fit either of those definitions, or at least graze them, I considered calling this collection The Fantastics. But there's a double problem with that: First, there’s the 1960 play The Fantasticks, which could cause some confusion, and second, Merriam-Webster also gives a third possible definition of ‘excellent, superlative’, and that might convey more than a whiff of conceit.

Since my first short story collection was titled 21 Tales, and there are twenty stories in this collection, I briefly considered the title Almost 21 More Tales. But the stories in this collection are very different from my earlier noir stories in that first collection.

While these stories run the gamut from science fiction to horror to mystery, relationships are at the core of most of them—whether it’s the relationship between a husband and wife, a couple which have just started dating, two partners, a baseball player on his last legs and his parents, or a reporter and the truth.

Buxton and Other Stories

 

Paperback and kindle versions of my new short story collection Buxton and Other Stories are now available. You can read more about this collection on my free substack. 

More about Blood Crimes

I write about my crime/horror novel Blood Crimes over on my free substack.

New version of Blood Crimes

 

New paperback and kindle versions of crimes are now available.

More about Everybody Lies in Hell

 

Over on my free davezeltserman.substack.com, I have some fun with Everybody Lies in Hell illustrations, as well as talking a little bit about the book.

Conclusion for horror story Sweer

 Part 2 and conclusion for my horror story Sweet now up on my free davezeltserman.substack.com

A horror Story -- Sweet: Part 1

Part 1 of my horror story Sweet has been published on my free davezeltserman.substack.com 

After writing this story for the Skin & Bones anthology, I couldn't let go of some of the ideas in it, and it led to my eventually writing my horror novel Husk.

How I came to write Husk

 Over on my free davezeltserman.substack.com I've posted an article on how I came about writing Husk.

Short story: Killing Time until the Next EON

 Part 2 and conclusion to Killing Time until the Next Eon is now up my always free davezeltserman.substack.com.

Over on my free davezeltserman.substack.com I have part one of a science fiction short story Killing Time until the Next Eon.

Where ideas come from

 

On my always free davezeltserman.substack.com I've posted a new article on where story and novel ideas come from.

 

Friday's Hard-boiled Bullet

 

Over on my always-free substack (so please subscribe!) I have this Friday's hard-boiled bullet of prose.

145-word Flash Fiction and how it became my Guns+Tacos novella

Over on my always free substack Dave Zeltserman's Dark and Amusing Fiction (so please subscribe!) I have my 145-word flash fiction story Cinnamon Girl and talk about how it became my 16,000 word novella for the Guns+Tacos series.

Small Crimes Journey + sketches

Over on my substack, I share the long journey Small Crimes took to publication and sketches that were made for a French graphic novel proposal by the extremely talented Jean-Pierre Jacquet.

 Over on my substack, I write about my thoughts on the Small Crimes movie.

Defining hard-boiled and noir fiction

 I have a new post over at my substack defining hard-boiled and noir fiction, as well as posting my first Friday hard-boiled bullet of prose.

Restarting my Substack

Back in 2021 I briefly played around with Substack but wasn't quite sure what to do with it and was busy writing software. Since I wrote my last line of software last year and am back to writing more short crime fiction, I've had a chance to think about what I want my substack to be and restarted with posts that include my meeting Robert Forster and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

You can visit my substack here and I hope you subscribe!