Dave Zeltserman's Blog, page 40

My book covers: Outsourced (Suhrkamp)

I find this 3-D effect of the book cover as a bank vault being opened amazingly clever and just brilliant. There's a somewhat long story for why the title for the German edition is '28 Minutes' instead of Outsourced.

When I was trying to sell the novel, I had far more enthusiasm in Hollywood than I did with NY publishers who were afraid back in 2004 that outsourcing wouldn't be an issue of interest to the public by 2005. Hollywood was different as I had a high-level Hollywood producer pushing this hard and eventually getting a deal in 2008 with Impact Pictures and Constantin Film. By this point I had changed the title to '28 Minutes', stripped out a good amount of the outsourcing commentary, and made the book more into a pure bank heist thriller. Serpent's Tail ended up buying this version, and the title was going to be '28 Minutes', but the film people decided they were going to keep the Outsourced title (which has since changed to avoid confusion with the short-lived TV show), and so Serpent's Tail went back to Outsourced.

Suhrkamp also came up with a second edition of the book, and for this cover they use a safe deposit box that had been violently ripped open. Another excellent cover from them!

My book covers: Outsourced

Serpent's Tail's choice of cover for Outsourced is an interesting one. It's hip and cool and witty, and I understand why Serpent's Tail used it, but it also hides that the book is as violent and dark as it is. Computers aren't used to rob the bank, as the cover implies. Guns are used, and it's a violent robbery, and the aftermath is as bloody and violent as anything in Small Crimes, Pariah or Killer.

"a dark gem of a story...a macabre delight to read" NPR
"A dark, lightening-paced read" Financial Times
"A small gem of crime fiction" Booklist
"Bodies mount up as the double dealing and revenge gather apace. The blurb on the book describes it as a "fast-paced, edge-of-your seat crime novel," and it really does live up to the hype. Add this to your holiday reading list for a piece of escapism." Morning Star
"And here again, Zeltserman manages to tell a riveting story in the straightforward, personality-driven manner at which he’s so accomplished. There’s no purple in his prose even though he obviously has learned lessons of the genre from masters like Jim Thompson." Boston Globe

My book covers: Killer (PulpMaster)

PulpMaster has come up with another work of art. For the German edition of Killer, the cover plays up the quieter, more meditative aspects of the book, which fits well since Killer is very much a meditation into the mind of a killer.

NPR's review of Outsourced

I've taken the audio of NPR's review of Outsourced and added an assortment of my book covers to it to make this video.

My book covers: Killer

Next up for my book covers is, Killer, which Serpent's Tail came up with a beaut for, and was one of the covers featured on a CBS Sunday Morning segment on book covers. Dark, foreboding, but with a quietness to it, which captures my best crime novel perfectly.

Boston Globe review of Killer

Spinetingler review of Killer 

TheBookBag review of Killer

The Next Big Thing: The Interloper

I was tagged last Wednesday by my friend and fellow Top Suspense author, Libby Hellmann for this--

What is the working title of your next book?

THE INTERLOPER

Where did the idea come from?

I had this preposterous  idea for a government conspiracy thriller that I just couldn't let go of, and this led to me writing the novella  THE HUNTED, which led me to wanting to write a series of novellas where some would be part of the same conspiracy idea with a Spillane/Destroyer feel, while others would be pure crime heist with more of a Richard Stark/Parker feel and others a mix of the two. So the next one up was THE DAME. And that led me to wanting to write a 3rd, THE INTERLOPER, and wanting to see if I could package the three of them as a novel.

What genre best defines your book?

men's action, crime, conspiracy, thriller

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?


Dan Willis -- Clive Owen

The Dame -- Milas Kunis
Martin Luce -- Jeremy Renner
 What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Shadowy government agency, hitmen, double-crosses, and crime heists gone very bad.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
The first two novellas have been self-published, but my agent is now shopping all 3 as a book. How long did it take you to write the first draft?
6 months.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
The first part, THE HUNTED, will remind readers of both The Destroyer books and Mickey Spillane. THE DAME and THE INTERLOPER parts will remind readers of Richard Stark books, such as The Seventh.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Partly my love of the Richard Stark Parker books, partly wanting to do a similar series, and partly having this preposterous conspiracy idea I couldn't let go of.
What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
The first part, THE HUNTED has a shocker of a secret, and the 2nd and 3rd parts are for readers who love violent crime heists novels.
Now for the tags: 
Look for their posts next week and consider trying…their Next Big Thing!
  
Howard Shrier, Paul D. Marks and Jason Stuart


  

My book covers: Pariah (Fanucci Editore)

My Italian publisher, Fanucci Editore, was originally going to publish Pariah as a standalone novel, but they decided instead to publish all three of my 'man out of prison' books in a single volume under their new TimeCrime imprint. The artwork they used for the cover was the artwork they were going to use for Pariah. While Serpent's Tail and PulpMaster made Kyle Nevin (rightfully) more demonic on their covers, Fanucci went more for a bad ass look, which is still fitting.

It's possible there's a fiercer and more ruthless first-person narrator in a crime novel than Kyle, but if there is, I haven't come across the book yet.

My book covers: Pariah (PulpMaster)

My German publisher for Pariah, PulpMaster, create very distinctive paintings for their covers, all modern pieces of art that could be hung in galleries, and their cover for Pariah is no different. What they've done with Kyle Nevin, is make him part man and part demon, which is extremely apt!

My book covers: Pariah

Serpent's Tail did a fantastic job with this cover for Pariah. An ominous Kyle Nevin in the shadows with the cabin beginning to erupt in flames. This cover not only captures the darkness and explosiveness of the book, but it was a great choice using Red Mahoney's cabin, which in the book was a place of evil and abomination.

Washington Post's review of Pariah

The Bookbag's review

Boston Globe's review

My book covers: Bad Karma

Next up is Bad Karma, which beat Pariah to publication by a month. My publisher's original cover wasn't very good, but they were willing to work with me to come up with this cover. Unfortunately the earlier rejected cover got submitted to Amazon and stayed up there until recently.


This cover still doesn't really work for the book, which is a hardboiled and somewhat new agey PI novel set in Boulder, Colorado dealing with cults, gangsters, and evil yoga studios. But at least the mountains being shown are the Flatirons, and the image superimposed in the right upper corner is the Hindu god Kali, who is related to karma.

At some point I'm going to put Bad Karma back up as an ebook, but with a new title and a cover more relating to the cult aspect of the book.