Dave Zeltserman's Blog, page 33
February 19, 2014
Archie wins (again)!
(Thanks to Art Taylor for the photo)I'm very happy to be able to report that my story Archie Solves the Case won this year's Ellery Queen's Readers Choice Award among some incredibly tough competition by a large group of terrific writers. This makes the second time I've won this award, the first time being in 2010 with my story Archie's Been Framed. This is also the 4th award my Julius Katz stories have won, with my first story in the series, 'Julius Katz' winning the Shamus and Derringer awards. I'd like to thank all of the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine readers who've been supporting these stories, and of course, Janet Hutchings for publishing them.For anyone wanting to read Archie Solves the Case, you can find it in the following ebook collection by the same name.
February 12, 2014
The Interloper Fully Funded
With 9 days left to go The Interloper is now 100% funded!
I'd like to thank everybody who supported this project. Sometime in April/May ebook versions and a paperback version should be available to backers, and 1 month later I'll be making these available also on Amazon.
While the The Interloper will be sold exclusively on Amazon, I will also have ebook versions available for the Nook and iPad for backers. The kindle price will be somewhere between $5.50 and $6.50 (still to be determined) and the ebook will not be put on sale by me for at least 1 year. Folks can still back the kickstarter project now for the $5 level and get a copy of The Interloper as soon as it's available, as well as get Nook and iPad versions which will not be available later for sale.
February 9, 2014
Fast Lane + The Interloper
FAST LANE is in the midst of a countdown sale, and for the next two days can be bought for $0.99. I wrote several drafts of what would become Fast Lane between 1990-1992, and first sold it to the Italian publisher Meridiano Zero in 2002, and later it was published by the small US publisher Point Blank Press in 2004 (and I'd like to thank JT Lindroos for letting me use Point Blank Press's excellent cover for the kindle version). Point Blank Press would also publish first books by Allan Guthrie (and I published Allan's first short story on my now defunct Hardluck Stories), Duane Swierczynski and Ray Banks.Fast Lane was not on my first book, but the first piece of fiction that I wrote with the intention of seeing it published. It's also arguably my most ambitious book. That may seem odd to those who've read Pariah, Monster and The Caretaker of Lorne Field, but it's true. While Fast Lane is disguised as a hardboiled PI novel, it's really very psychotic noir, but at the same time it's also a deconstruction of the hardboiled PI genre. And it's a book that fools readers, at least for a good part of the way.
The Interloper, which has gotten a big thumbs up from several Richard Stark/Parker fans who've I've shown it to is now at 86% funded with 12 days to go. From the feedback I've gotten I feel confident in saying that if you like Richard Stark's Parker books, the odds are pretty good you're to like this.
January 26, 2014
Excerpt from THE INTERLOPER + reward changes
With 26 days to go, THE INTERLOPER kickstarter project is 67.5% funded, and to help drive it to 100% I've added a new $5 pledge level which will have as a reward a digital copy of THE INTERLOPER, and I've changed the $10 and $25 levels to now have digital copies sent to 4 friends instead of 2.
Below is an excerpt from the beginning of THE INTERLOPER, and you can also read what some folks are saying about THE HUNTED and THE DAME here.
________________
At one fifty-four in the morning Dan Willis had a ski mask pulled over his face as he sat patiently in a stolen pickup truck, the engine idling softly in the darkness, the lights off. The pickup truck had been backed into an alley off of a desolate city block in East Boston made up almost entirely of abandoned factories and burnt out warehouses. There was still one operational warehouse on the block, and if things went right the crew Willis was working with would be stealing one point five million dollars worth of pharmaceutical drugs within the hour.
Four minutes later the car Willis was expecting drove past him. While he didn’t know what car it would be or who would be driving it, he and the rest of the crew were still expecting someone to be driving toward the warehouse at this time. In this case it turned out to be a badly dented older model Ford Escort. Willis waited where he was until one of the other crew members turned on the brights of the stolen car he was in and accelerated directly at the Escort, forcing the other car to slam on its brakes. Willis then gunned the engine and swung his pickup truck out of the alley and pulled up behind the Escort, blocking the vehicle. Willis got out of the vehicle and moved fast to the driver’s side door of the Escort, then tapped the window with the barrel of the .40 caliber pistol that he was holding. The driver of the Escort looked like a college kid. His eyes grew large and his skin paled to the color of milk as he focused on the gun. Willis tapped the window again and signaled for the kid to lower the window. The kid was scared to death but he did as he was directed.
“I’ve got about forty dollar on me,” the kid forced out in a faltering voice. “You can take my money, the car, the pizzas, please, just don’t hurt me.”
“If you shut up and act smart, you won’t get hurt. Get out of the car now, and leave the keys where they are.”
The kid did as he was told. Willis had him take off a grease-stained jacket and an even greasier-looking baseball cap, both of which had the name of the pizza shop the kid worked for stitched on them. Willis tossed these to Charlie Hendrick, who was the driver of the other stolen car and was standing off to the side. If the kid driving the Escort was closer to Willis’s size, Willis would’ve put on the jacket and cap, but the kid was six inches shorter than Willis and was closer to Hendrick’s height, although around twenty pounds chunkier. Hendrick was the one who had put this heist together, and like the rest of the crew except for Willis, was in his late twenties, and with his ski mask off looked like the typical slacker who maybe shaves once every couple of weeks and hangs out all day playing video games and smoking weed. Big Ed Hanley, Willis’s agent for this job, had told Willis that Hendrick and the rest of his crew might not look like much at first, but that they were smart and professional, and so far this turned out to be accurate.
As Hendrick slipped on the jacket and cap, Willis used duct tape to bind the kid’s wrists together behind his back, then after hitting the Escort’s trunk release latch and dumping out the garbage filling up the trunk, Willis had the kid get into it. It was a tight squeeze but Willis was able to position the kid so he could close the trunk on him. The kid was shaking badly and looked like he might pass out or start vomiting at any moment.
“Relax, kid,” Willis told him. “I’m not going to gag you or bind your ankles together. In thirty minutes the police will be here. Just kick the inside of the trunk and they’ll find you. You’ll be fine.”
He closed the trunk on the kid. Hendrick was on his cell phone finishing up his call with one of the other crew members. He nodded to Willis and got into the car the kid had been driving. Willis first moved the stolen car Hendrick had been using so that Hendrick could continue on to the warehouse, then he got into the pickup truck and followed him, all the while keeping the lights off. Willis pulled over far away enough from the entrance so that security guard working the front desk wouldn’t be able to look out the glass vestibule door and see the pickup truck in the dark. Hendrick had pulled up to the main entrance as if he were only delivering pizzas.
From Willis’s vantage point he could see the events that played out next, and it was exactly what Hendrick had told him would happen, not that he thought it would be otherwise. Hendrick brought the pizzas to the vestibule door, was buzzed in, and then as he was handing the pizzas to the security guard at the front desk, he pulled the pizza boxes back just enough to make the guard lean forward to reach for them, which got the guard’s hands away from the security alarm button on the side of his desk. As the guard awkwardly took hold of the two large pizza boxes, Hendrick, in a quick and fluid motion, slipped from his back waistband a nine millimeter Glock and brought it out in front of him, pointing it at the security guard, who just stood dumbly for a moment before putting two and two together. Willis didn’t wait any longer. He hit the gas and brought the pickup truck up to the front warehouse entrance. Hendrick buzzed him in, and at this point the security guard was sitting on the floor behind the desk, his wrists and ankles bound with duct tape, a gag stuffed in his mouth. The guard peered up at Willis with a hurt, sullen look, probably mostly angry at himself for allowing himself to get taken the way he did.
Below is an excerpt from the beginning of THE INTERLOPER, and you can also read what some folks are saying about THE HUNTED and THE DAME here.
________________
At one fifty-four in the morning Dan Willis had a ski mask pulled over his face as he sat patiently in a stolen pickup truck, the engine idling softly in the darkness, the lights off. The pickup truck had been backed into an alley off of a desolate city block in East Boston made up almost entirely of abandoned factories and burnt out warehouses. There was still one operational warehouse on the block, and if things went right the crew Willis was working with would be stealing one point five million dollars worth of pharmaceutical drugs within the hour.
Four minutes later the car Willis was expecting drove past him. While he didn’t know what car it would be or who would be driving it, he and the rest of the crew were still expecting someone to be driving toward the warehouse at this time. In this case it turned out to be a badly dented older model Ford Escort. Willis waited where he was until one of the other crew members turned on the brights of the stolen car he was in and accelerated directly at the Escort, forcing the other car to slam on its brakes. Willis then gunned the engine and swung his pickup truck out of the alley and pulled up behind the Escort, blocking the vehicle. Willis got out of the vehicle and moved fast to the driver’s side door of the Escort, then tapped the window with the barrel of the .40 caliber pistol that he was holding. The driver of the Escort looked like a college kid. His eyes grew large and his skin paled to the color of milk as he focused on the gun. Willis tapped the window again and signaled for the kid to lower the window. The kid was scared to death but he did as he was directed.
“I’ve got about forty dollar on me,” the kid forced out in a faltering voice. “You can take my money, the car, the pizzas, please, just don’t hurt me.”
“If you shut up and act smart, you won’t get hurt. Get out of the car now, and leave the keys where they are.”
The kid did as he was told. Willis had him take off a grease-stained jacket and an even greasier-looking baseball cap, both of which had the name of the pizza shop the kid worked for stitched on them. Willis tossed these to Charlie Hendrick, who was the driver of the other stolen car and was standing off to the side. If the kid driving the Escort was closer to Willis’s size, Willis would’ve put on the jacket and cap, but the kid was six inches shorter than Willis and was closer to Hendrick’s height, although around twenty pounds chunkier. Hendrick was the one who had put this heist together, and like the rest of the crew except for Willis, was in his late twenties, and with his ski mask off looked like the typical slacker who maybe shaves once every couple of weeks and hangs out all day playing video games and smoking weed. Big Ed Hanley, Willis’s agent for this job, had told Willis that Hendrick and the rest of his crew might not look like much at first, but that they were smart and professional, and so far this turned out to be accurate.
As Hendrick slipped on the jacket and cap, Willis used duct tape to bind the kid’s wrists together behind his back, then after hitting the Escort’s trunk release latch and dumping out the garbage filling up the trunk, Willis had the kid get into it. It was a tight squeeze but Willis was able to position the kid so he could close the trunk on him. The kid was shaking badly and looked like he might pass out or start vomiting at any moment.
“Relax, kid,” Willis told him. “I’m not going to gag you or bind your ankles together. In thirty minutes the police will be here. Just kick the inside of the trunk and they’ll find you. You’ll be fine.”
He closed the trunk on the kid. Hendrick was on his cell phone finishing up his call with one of the other crew members. He nodded to Willis and got into the car the kid had been driving. Willis first moved the stolen car Hendrick had been using so that Hendrick could continue on to the warehouse, then he got into the pickup truck and followed him, all the while keeping the lights off. Willis pulled over far away enough from the entrance so that security guard working the front desk wouldn’t be able to look out the glass vestibule door and see the pickup truck in the dark. Hendrick had pulled up to the main entrance as if he were only delivering pizzas.
From Willis’s vantage point he could see the events that played out next, and it was exactly what Hendrick had told him would happen, not that he thought it would be otherwise. Hendrick brought the pizzas to the vestibule door, was buzzed in, and then as he was handing the pizzas to the security guard at the front desk, he pulled the pizza boxes back just enough to make the guard lean forward to reach for them, which got the guard’s hands away from the security alarm button on the side of his desk. As the guard awkwardly took hold of the two large pizza boxes, Hendrick, in a quick and fluid motion, slipped from his back waistband a nine millimeter Glock and brought it out in front of him, pointing it at the security guard, who just stood dumbly for a moment before putting two and two together. Willis didn’t wait any longer. He hit the gas and brought the pickup truck up to the front warehouse entrance. Hendrick buzzed him in, and at this point the security guard was sitting on the floor behind the desk, his wrists and ankles bound with duct tape, a gag stuffed in his mouth. The guard peered up at Willis with a hurt, sullen look, probably mostly angry at himself for allowing himself to get taken the way he did.
January 23, 2014
Kickstarting THE INTERLOPER
I have just started a kickstarter project for the 3rd chapter of my Hunted series, THE INTERLOPER. Instead of being novella-sized, this one is 150 pages which puts it more the size of a Gold Medal paperback, but my plan is to put all 3 together as both an ebook and paperback. If you've read an enjoyed any of my hardboiled crime fiction, you'll like THE INTERLOPER, which is probably the twistiest and most action-packed of my Hunted series.
It's going to be up to you the readers to decide whether THE INTERLOPER exists as an ebook and paperback or stays as a file on my computer. I basically need a combination of 200 ebook and 80 paperback sales for this to happen. So it's all up to you!
If you want THE INTERLOPER please help spread the word about this kickstarter project. That's the only way this will work!
It's going to be up to you the readers to decide whether THE INTERLOPER exists as an ebook and paperback or stays as a file on my computer. I basically need a combination of 200 ebook and 80 paperback sales for this to happen. So it's all up to you!
If you want THE INTERLOPER please help spread the word about this kickstarter project. That's the only way this will work!
January 3, 2014
Countdown sale underway for JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE
The funnest of my Julius Katz works is the full-length novel, JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE, where Julius is hired by a Boston mystery author to find out who is planning to kill him, except there's a catch, and things aren't quite what they appear to be, and Julius soon finds himself embroiled in his toughest case. And things quickly turn personal when an attempt is made on Julius's life (which is foiled by Archie!)Anyone who's enjoyed any of the Julius Katz stories that have been appearing in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine will want to read JULIUS KATZ & ARCHIE, and with a countdown sale underway, you can now get it for a ridiculously low price of $0.99 for the next 2 days!
December 26, 2013
A deeper look at Monster
With the paperback edition of Monster hitting stores now, I thought I'd write about what Monster is really about. The premise behind Monster is what if the story Victor Frankenstein told in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was an outrageous lie to protect his reputation. What if the real story involved Frankenstein in league with the Marquis de Sade to bring Sade's most horrific work to life to demonstrate what they believe is the true nature of man? And what if the monster was originally a poor unfortunate who was framed for murder by Frankenstein and retained all his memories after his transformation, and is finally now about to tell the real story?That's the premise behind my novel, and in writing Monster I overlayed the story with Shelley's original so the same journey takes place, but the reasons for each destination are very different. So is Monster simply a retelling of Frankenstein? No. It's also very much a reworking of Marquis De Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, and thematically it's an exploration of Sade's philosophy of man being a base creatures like all other animals, and hence morality is only an invented concept with no true meaning. And eventually Monster is a repudiation of this philosophy.
Monster is also very much a horror novel with vampyres (the spelling taken from John Polidori's The Vampyre, whose genesis came from the same rainy day challenge at the Lake Geneva home in which Shelley's Frankenstein also took birth), witch burnings, satanism, dark magic, evil murals, and other horrors. While Monster is a loving tribute to Shelley's Frankenstein, it also is to a lesser degree to the great German fantasy and horror writer, E. T. A. Hoffmann (hence the monster's name before his transformation, Friedrich Hoffmann). While Hoffmann's influence can be found throughout Monster, one of his tales was the inspiration for my nightmare mural.
Finally Monster is also very much a historical novel. I had spent 9 months researching Monster, and the book is filled with small tidbits taken from this research. Here's a short excerpt from where the monster is roaming the dark streets of London that is based on a gang of thugs I came across in my research who for sport collected the noses of the poor unfortunates they met:
I kept walking north, using the few stars I could make out in the sky to guide me. Mostly I made my way through cramped alleyways and streets, although at times I would come across small parks and gardens and buildings of remarkable grandeur. I was no more than a few miles from where I had freed that man from the pillory when I spotted five men standing together in the darkness. Somehow they sensed me and they moved quickly so that they surrounded me. They were big men, although nowhere my size. But each of them were over six feet tall and were thick shouldered, and each of them held long knives. They reminded me of the wolves that attacked me when I traveled to Leipzig.
One of them addressed me. “Aye, mate. If you are going to pass, you got to pay our toll.”
“What is your toll?”
He laughed at that. “Listen to his accent. A foreigner.” This was said to his companions. Then to me, he said, “Your pig snout. That is what we collect, and that’s why we are members of The Pig Snout Club. So remember that for when you tell stories of how you lost your pig snout!”
While I had studied English, I hadn’t spoken or heard it much in my life, and I wasn’t sure if I heard right. “I do not have a pig with me,” I said. “So I am afraid you will have to collect your snout from someone else.”
“That’s not how it works, friend. We’ll collect the snout from you. From your own face, mind you. So stand still and be prepared to pay your toll. Or put up a fight if you wish.”
December 23, 2013
"even better than RD-D2 or 3CPO"
From Book Savant: Shades of Nero Wolfe – Julius Katz shares the famed Rex Stout detective’s love of good wine, good food and interesting women. Boston’s most brilliant, eccentric and possibly laziest detective, Katz, has as his sidekick, Archie, a tiny marvel of whiz-bang computer technology with the heart and soul of a hard-boiled PI. Famous Boston mystery writer, Kenneth Kingston, tells Julius he wants to find out who’s planning to kill him. The problem is almost everyone in Kingston’s life has good reason to want to kill him, and this case soon plunges Julius and Archie deep into the world of murder and publishing. If you enjoyed Nero, you will love Julius and Archie is even better than RD-D2 or 3CPO as an android partner. 8/12 Jack QuickBuy JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE now! It's the next best thing to having your own Archie!
December 18, 2013
Monster gets a new look
Here's the cool cover for the paperback version of Monster which should be in stores everywhere over the next couple of weeks.
December 4, 2013
Countdown sales underway for THE DAME, BAD THOUGHTS and BLOOD CRIMES
Three very different style of crime fiction, all on sale now!
"The Dame reads like a Reader’s Digest Condensed Parker, with all of the elements that we know and love crammed into a scant 70 pages. There are the team assembled to do the job with weaker and stronger members, the execution of the heists, the crosses, and the violence. Zeltserman even plays around with point-of-view shifts similar to those in the Parker novels." The Violent World of Parker
My crime heist novella, THE DAME, is on sale now for only $0.99
"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
"BAD THOUGHTS is one of those books that has been under the radar all year, yet deserves to be discovered by a wider audience" Bruce Grossman, Bookgasm.com
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's Booknews
BAD THOUGHTS will be on sale for $2.99 for the next 2 and 1/2 days
"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?" -- Ed Gorman, author of Cage of Night and The Poker Club.
"I'd call it the anti-Twilight, and in my book that's a good thing." Bill Crider
"Zeltserman, a noir author from deep in his bones, has always flirted with horror--his Caretaker of Lorne Field ranks as one of the best novels in that category back in 2010. Blood Crimes goes over the retaining wall and into the dark woods, throwing in delightful twists on reliable tropes... These aren't your sister's romantic vampires, to say the least." Harry Shannon
BLOOD CRIMES is on sale for the 2 and 1/2 days for $1.99
"The Dame reads like a Reader’s Digest Condensed Parker, with all of the elements that we know and love crammed into a scant 70 pages. There are the team assembled to do the job with weaker and stronger members, the execution of the heists, the crosses, and the violence. Zeltserman even plays around with point-of-view shifts similar to those in the Parker novels." The Violent World of ParkerMy crime heist novella, THE DAME, is on sale now for only $0.99
"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"BAD THOUGHTS is one of those books that has been under the radar all year, yet deserves to be discovered by a wider audience" Bruce Grossman, Bookgasm.com
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's Booknews
BAD THOUGHTS will be on sale for $2.99 for the next 2 and 1/2 days
"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?" -- Ed Gorman, author of Cage of Night and The Poker Club.
"I'd call it the anti-Twilight, and in my book that's a good thing." Bill Crider
"Zeltserman, a noir author from deep in his bones, has always flirted with horror--his Caretaker of Lorne Field ranks as one of the best novels in that category back in 2010. Blood Crimes goes over the retaining wall and into the dark woods, throwing in delightful twists on reliable tropes... These aren't your sister's romantic vampires, to say the least." Harry Shannon
BLOOD CRIMES is on sale for the 2 and 1/2 days for $1.99
