Julius Katz and Archie..

is being profiled at the Indies Book Blog

Top Suspense's Sizzling Summer Reads!

We're announcing a Summer Book Club over at Top Suspense. My entry is Dying Memories, which is probably a perfect thriller for the summer. Fast-paced, lots of twists and turns where you're never quite sure what's happening, a nice noir edge, nasty, dangerous villains and a protagonist to root for. That's right, my protagonist in this one is the good guy!

Take the Blood Crimes Summer Challenge

There's a reason why I keep hearing from readers who tell me they hate vampire books but loved Blood Crimes. This review from Paul Brazill seems to be representative of what I've been hearing from most readers:

"Let's face it; most vampires are big girl's blouses. If Tom Cruise in `Interview With A Vampire' is anything to go by then the typical vampire is about as scary as Adam Ant's `Dandy Highwayman'.

But there's nothing of the New Romantic about the vampires in Dave Zeltserman's `Blood Crimes'. These are hard rocking creatures of the night. Indeed, the book kicks off with our heroes ,Jim and Carol, driving along an archetypal American highway listening to The Doors `Riders On The Storm'. This sets the tone of 'Blood Crimes' perfectly although there's more than one `killer on the road' in this hardboiled take on the vampire legend.

Jim and Clara are classic noir lovers on the run, like those in They Drive By Night, Theives Like Us,Badlands and Natural Born Killers. They're trying to escape from Serena - a rich, vampire femme fatale - and Metcalf - an ex CIA hit man who performs experiments on vampires in an underground laboratory. Throw a world weary Private Eye and a biker gang into the mix and you have a really well written, blood splattered and very cinamatic page turner that fans of From Dusk Till Dawn and Near Dark will love. And not a lavender fop in sight!"

So here's my Summer challenge--if you've got a Kindle or Nook, download the free sample and see if you can read it without being hooked! And if you do get hooked, help spread the word!

"I highly recommend that you grab a copy of JULIUS KATZ MYSTERIES."

I'd like to thank James Reasoner for his review of Julius Katz Mysteries.

For fans of Small Crimes

Small Crimes was published in 2008 and made a bit of a stir when NPR picked it as one of the 5 best crime and mystery novels of that year, saying:

"This tale is told by one of fortune's fools: Joe Denton is a crooked ex-cop in Vermont who's just been released from jail after serving seven years for stabbing the local district attorney in the face. Since what's past is never truly past in crime noir, no sooner does Joe step out of the slammer than cosmic IOU's begin to rain down on his head. First, the disfigured DA cheerfully greets Joe outside the prison and announces that a local crime kingpin (and Joe's secret boss) is dying of cancer and has found religion. The kingpin's expected confession should send Joe straight back behind bars. Then, the local sheriff (also crooked) orders Joe to murder the DA before the crime kingpin can confess. The plot of Small Crimes ricochets out from this claustrophobic opening, and it's a thing of sordid beauty."

Small Crimes made other best of the year lists, and received other raves reviews from the Boston Globe, Sun-Sentinel, and others. It has since been translated to Italian (where it placed 3rd in last year's Bloody Mary awards) and French.


Fans of Small Crimes are going to want to read the Manny Vassey stories in 21 Tales!

For fans of Fast Lane

My first novel, Fast Lane, was first published in Italy by Meridiano Zero and later in 2003 by Point Blank Press in the US, and it ended up developing a loyal following among noir readers. In a lot of ways it's a very ambitious book, both a deconstruction of the hardboiled PI genre and a very wild psycho noir. Here's what Patrick Millikin at Poisoned Pen Bookstore wrote about it:

"In the last few years there have been a number of writers, such as Ken Bruen and Victor Gischler, who've taken the classic PI novel and tweaked the hell out of it, creating something fresh and unique. Add Dave Zeltserman to the list. Several pages into his debut, I knew that I was reading something special." Patrick Millikin, Poisoned Pen's Book News, Hardboiled Crime Club Selection


If you're a fan of Fast Lane, you want to read The Dover Affair in 21 Tales, which is one of Johnny Lane's earlier cases.

recently published stories+ 3 free ones

My recently published stories:

The Canary in the Top Suspense Anthology

Some People Deserve to Die in the current issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

When Death Shines Bright in the recently released Cape Cod Noir from Akashic Books

Emma Sue in the recently released On Dangerous Ground Stories of Western Noir



Here's an easy way to read 3 stories of mine for free if you have a Kindle (or maybe a Nook also). Download the free sample of 21 Tales and start reading right now for free Danny Smith, More Than a Scam (received honorable mention in the 2003 Best Mystery Stories Anthology) and Flies.

Anyone with a Nook, I'd appreciate you letting me know what stories their free sample includes.

"the best crime novel I have read in the last year"

I'd like to thank David Kanell at Kingdom Books for his early thoughts on A Killer's Essence. The book won't be out until September 1st, but Kingdom Books is a great place to contact if you want signed copies of any of my other books. And if you're looking for an ebook to tide you over, I'd like to suggest three very different mystery/crime titles.

Julius Katz and Archie has a classic traditional mystery feel, but with a unique twist that makes it unlike any mystery you've read. The consensus so far is that this is highly enjoyable, charming and a lot fun. Appropriate for any mystery reader. Or really any reader.

Dying Memories is a pure thriller with lots of twists and turns, a plot that will keep you guessing and is appropriate for any thriller reader.

Blood Crimes is a high octane thrill ride of a book. People who claim they hate vampire books still love this one. Ultra noir, violent and extreme horror. The anti-Twilight! You've been warned!!

Julius Katz and Archie, Pariah, Whitey Bulger

Yet another reviewer who finds Julius Katz and Archie amazingly fun and entertaining:

Julius Katz and Archie is a wonderfully fun, classic sleuth mystery story that will appeal to a wide audience range. I highly recommend this as the perfect way to relax and indulge in a bit of summer fun!

Read Cafe of Dreams review here.




Interesting that Whitey Bulger claims that while he was a fugitive he came back to Boston a couple of times fully armed to take care of business. With Bulger's capture, I thought I'd reprint the Washington Post's review of Pariah (a book that's the polar opposite of Julius Katz and Archie) by Maureen Corrigan

What a sick puppy of a writer Dave Zeltserman is! I didn't think a suspense story could get any more dark and twisted than Zeltserman's pulp masterpiece of last year, "Small Crimes." In that nasty little immorality tale, a crooked ex-cop bent on redemption gets released from prison and finds out that nobody -- not his ex-wife, not his young daughters, not even his elderly parents -- wants him back. The kicker is that they're right. By the end of "Small Crimes," I was wrung out thanks to the ingeniousness of Zeltserman's nonstop plot twists and the stark meanness of his universe. Now comes "Pariah," a doozy of 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. As it is, I can barely handle reading him without altogether losing whatever faith I've got left in humanity.
ad_icon

The antihero of this latest excursion into the underside is Kyle Nevin, a former heavyweight in the South Boston Irish mob. Eight years earlier, Kyle was set up by his former boss, Red Mahoney, to be murdered during a big bank heist; but fate smiled on Kyle, and another guy took the fatal bullet instead. Now, just released from eight years in the slammer, Kyle is out for revenge, sniffing out Mahoney the way a half-starved bloodhound would catch the scent of an underdone Big Mac. As is required in any work of crime noir worth its grit, we readers see the world through Kyle's bloodshot eyes. And here lies Zeltserman's particular brilliance: As a murderous sociopath, Kyle, like his predecessors in the Zeltserman lineup, is so boisterous in his self-justifications (for everything from breaking the little finger of a litterbug to kidnapping a sickly child to burning alive a close relative in his bed) that a reader can't help but laugh at the fervent illogic of it all. Here, for instance, Kyle describes the way he and his reluctant younger brother, Danny, steal a laptop from an unsuspecting "mark" who has just left an upscale Boston coffeehouse:

"I grabbed for the laptop and as the mark realized what was going on and tried to pull back, Danny was out of the car and clocking him on the side of the head with the brick. . . . The reality of the situation, the guy was no more than a hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet, and a slap on the side of the head with an open palm would've done the trick, but I was glad to see Danny use the brick. Not that I cared whether or not some effeminate mochachino-swilling yuppie had his head bashed in, but that type of violence was what I needed to bring the old Danny back."

In Kyle's perspective, the robbery serves as a terrific therapeutic exercise for Danny. And the really sick thing is that the scene is so brazenly buoyant that the reader gets carried along with the moment, too. Hooray! The Nevin Brothers are back! Bad luck for the yuppie who was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, but a good break for Danny and Kyle, who commit the assault in broad daylight on a Boston street, without any witnesses around.

The thing about luck, though, is that it always changes. After that aforementioned kidnapping goes haywire, Kyle dodges another jail term with the help of a principled defense attorney who can barely stand to breathe in his tainted presence. Then, he's offered a fabulous book deal to write a true-crime "fictional novel" of how the kidnapping might have gone down. (Zeltserman is obviously exacting some comic revenge on members of the publishing profession who, like their mobster counterparts, are always trolling for "the big one" and training their beady eyes on the bottom line.) Kyle is set up with a book packager who's supposed to help him bang out the novel in two months. Oprah, the bestsellers lists, European book tours and Hollywood await. Trouble is, Kyle's luck turns. He comes down with a nasty case of writer's block. That's just the very beginning of a long, loopy downward slide into the abyss.

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.

Whitey Bulger and Pariah

I have to admit I was (for lack of a better word that I can use in a public forum) amused at seeing the rash of South Boston mobster tell-all books that were published in 2006. At the time I had just sold a crime novel, Small Crimes, to the London publisher, Serpent’s Tail, but I’d also been struggling for years to sell one of my books to NY. Although it might have been a bit galling to see the large New York publishers sidling up to these convicted criminals and handing them book deals, I could understand the fascination with all things Whitey Bulger. After all, I shared that same fascination, and I had for years both before and after Whitey became a fugitive, read everything I could about him in the Boston Globe, and listened to all the stories and rumors about him on talk radio. This was a real-life gangster story almost too bizarre for Hollywood—Boston’s most feared gangster being brothers with the State Senate President. And then there would be stories about Whitey’s criminal activities, his extortion methods and murders, and even things like him getting a hold of a winning lottery ticket. And you’d hear stories secondhand from people who had contact with him that were likewise chilling. Once Whitey became a fugitive, it really got interesting as we all found out about Whitey being an informant for the FBI. And not just any informant, but one who corrupted his FBI handlers so he could use them to squash his competition, and worse, get tipped off so he could kill those wanting to testify against him.

So it ‘s easy to see why we were all so fascinated by Whitey and the stories and rumors circulating about him. Seeing those tell-all books in 2006 ended up providing the motivation I needed to write Pariah. In most of my crime novels I dig into the criminal mind and try to understand the psychology of why they do what they do, and at the same time explore the darker impulses we all feel. With Pariah there’s a lot of that, but I also drew upon all the stories and rumors I had read and heard over the years to write a fictional story that would feel like it was imbued with a real sense of history of how Whitey Bulger and his underlings operated. In the novel I have a Whitey Bulger-like character named Red Mahoney, but the focus is on Mahoney’s right hand man, Kyle Nevin, who was betrayed by Mahoney, and now out of prison wants revenge on his fugitive ex-boss, as well as reestablishing himself as a man to be feared. And while it’s a brutal and fierce crime novel, it’s equally a satire on the New York publishing industry and our celebrity-obsessed culture, a culture that’s all too willing to make a criminal into a celebrity if the money’s right.

I was surprised when I saw the story late last Wednesday night about Whitey Bulger being captured in Santa Monica. I’d read about him scattering funds throughout Europe, and I assumed he would live out his days anonymously there or in Southeast Asia never to be heard of again. It just seemed that Bulger was too smart, too clever, and just too lucky to ever get caught. Early reports have Whitey living in a rent controlled apartment in Santa Monica for the last fifteen years instead of in Europe as we all thought, so he fooled us all. But I guess his luck finally ran out, and with his capture a chapter in Boston’s history has closed. Maybe there will be another chapter to add if Bulger confesses to the FBI, or writes yet one more South Boston mobster tell-all book.