Dave Zeltserman's Blog, page 48

Monster: A Novel of Frankenstein

Monster will be released August 2nd from Overlook Press: Victor Frankenstein. Marquis de Sade. Devil worshipers. London sex clubs. Street gangs. Vengeance. Obsession. Damnation.

Favorite Kills Free!

Top Suspense has its second anthology out, Favorite Kills, and for the next 3 days it's free as a kindle download from Amazon.

NPR on Outsourced, Small Crimes, Pariah

"a dark gem of a story...a macabre delight to read"


"The plot of Small Crimes ricochets out from this claustrophobic opening, and it's a thing of sordid beauty." Selected as one of the top 5 crime and mystery novels of 2008


"as nasty and clever as noir can get"

NPR also talked about Pariah & Small Crimes

Within NPR's rave review yesterday on Outsourced, there was also this "Small Crimes and Pariah are about as nasty and clever as noir can get."

So if you like noir, and haven't read Small Crimes, Pariah (and Killer + Fast Lane also), why not?[image error]

NPR on Outsourced: "macabre delight to read"

NPR gives Outsourced a terrific review today.

FAST LANE free today only

For today only I'm making Fast Lane free for the kindle. This was the first book I ever wrote, hell, it was the first piece of fiction I ever wrote to try to have published, and in a lot of ways this was my response to what I saw as the softening of the PI genre. In some ways this is one of my most ambitious crime novels, and even though this looks like a PI book, it's really the anti-PI novel and pure psychotic noir. Readers who like Julius and Archie are going to hate Johnny Lane, who makes Kyle Nevin (Pariah) look like a well-adjusted nice guy in comparison.

kindle ebooks of mine you can rent for free

The following titles of mine have all been enrolled in Amazon's KDP Select Program, so if you're an Amazon Prime member, you can rent any of these for free:

Julius Katz and Archie

Julius Katz Mysteries

21 Tales

Blood Crimes: Book One

Fast Lane

Dying Memories

Bad Thoughts

Bad Karma

A little late in the game but...

This is late, but JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE is the book of the day over at Ereader News Today.

21 TALES for $0.99

For a short time I'm going to make 21 TALES available for $0.99 for the kindle. That's right, less than $0.05 per story. Can't beat that, right? If you're a fan of Small Crimes, Fast Lane or Julius Katz you want to read this collection--Small Crimes fans for my early Manny Vassey stories, Fast Lane for a prequel story that allows Johnny Lane to for once act as the Lew Archer PI he always wanted to be, and Julius Katz for the Pete Mitchel stories since Julius originated from a mix of Nero Wolfe and Pete Mitchel.

"Inventively depraved" New York Magazine

"Dave Zeltserman is one of the crime genre's most accomplished, radical, and innovative talents. His command of style and personal dark vision of the world are framed in the short form to reach out and shake the reader by the throat. I only wish that 21 TALES had been 51 Tales or 101 Tales. We need more of his edgy stories to rattle the field." Tom Piccirilli, author of Shadow Season

"In a relatively short period of time Dave Zeltserman has established himself as the most relevant author of dark crime fiction working today. As usual, Dave doesn't pull any punches, and his 21 Tales is inventive, nasty, pulpy fun." Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep

"Deadpan and more ruthless than ever, Zeltserman pulls off one clever shocker after another in classic pulp style. Not for the faint-hearted!" Vicki Hendricks, author of Cruel Poetry

"Zeltserman's twisty-tailed gems drag you deep into pulpland, bitch slap you dizzy, and leave you begging for more." Roger Smith, author of Mixed Blood

"Dave Zeltserman's stories demonstrate that he's as masterful with the short story as he is with the novel--the same stunning level of craft and the same lacerating vision. This is an important collection." Ed Gorman, author of Ticket to Ride

"I've become a big Fan of Dave Zeltserman for one simple reason: The man can write. 21 TALES, a collection of his short stories, sure will satisfy the most die-hard fan, while also giving bite-size tastes to the unconverted. It's broken down into five sections that range from the semi-autobiographical to the brutal, but are all dark tales of noir." Bruce Grossman, Bookgasm

"21 TALES is a lethal Molotov cocktail that won't give you a hangover but could give nightmares." Pulp Metal Magazine

So get your $0.99 kindle copy while it's still available!

Free Bad Karma

The Kindle version of BAD KARMA is going to be free for the next 5 days. The reaction to this book has been interesting. When the book was released in 2009 readers unfamiliar with me tended to like it quite a bit, while fans of my harder core noir books that had already come out (Fast Lane, Small Crimes and Pariah) were just pissed off and disappointed that I wrote a hardboiled PI novel instead of another pitch black noir journey. In a way, this book opened up my readers to accepting Julius Katz and The Caretaker of Lorne Field, which they mught not have otherwise. Even though Bad Karma is a hardboiled PI novel, it's still very different from the norm, and at it's core it is very dark in its own right. It's also connected to three of my other books: BAD THOUGHTS, FAST LANE and OUTSOURCED.

I never really did much to promote this book in the past for several reasons: the timing of when this book came out couldn't have been worse, which was the same time PARIAH was released, the publisher never was able to fix the Amazon page which showed an early and rejected book cover, and finally, the goal for this book was significantly more modest than Caretaker and my 'man out of prison' noir trilogy books--namely to be a fun, hardboiled PI read.

Here are a few of the reviews from when the book came out:

"Detective Bill Shannon, introduced in Bad Thoughts (2007), is back, and a welcome return it is. Relocated from Boston to Boulder, Shannon has fled the Boston PD for a low-stress lifestyle, picking up a little work on the side as a private eye. But despite his efforts to find psychic and psychological peace of mind after his horrific encounter with Herbert Winters, the demonic serial killer from the earlier novel, Shannon discovers that putting distance between himself and the old evils doesn't help him escape the new evils. Zeltserman weaves together elements of both mystery and horror genres, as Shannon again finds himself confronting the darkness that roams the boundary beyond one's physical senses. It's as though Zeltserman has aimed a 12-gauge sawed-off at smarmy New Age sensitivities and fired off both barrels. Irony abounds, as Shannon unmasks deviant gurus, evil yoga sudios, Russian gangsters, and guys who use their baseball implements in socially unacceptable ways. If you liked the first novel in this series, you'll love this one." — Elliott Swanson, Booklist

"The violence in this book is more subdued than that in Bad Thoughts, but it's certainly there. The story is also a pretty straightforward p.i. tale, though not without some horror and New Age elements, which once again proves Zeltserman's versatility (he's doing noir novels and Nero Wolfe pastiches in EQMM, among other things). If you haven't read Zeltserman's work, it's time to start." Bill Crider, read the entire review here.

"Even though this is not SMALL CRIMES part two, don't let that dissuade you from checking out the Shannon series. It might have its flights into the metaphysical world, but it's still top-notch P.I. reading. Even for Yankee fans." —Bruce Grossman, Bookgam, read the entire review here.

"Loads of fun here"-- Drowning Machine, read entire review here.

"The novel works on three levels. It's part clever murder mystery and part personal spiritual journey as Shannon tries to heal his psychological scars and achieve inner peace; it's also an informed and impartial commentary on the New Age Movement, presenting both the positive and negative aspects the subculture. This might be a standard PI tale in structure, but it shares the ingenuity which has brought a distinctive touch to so much of Zeltserman's fiction." The Tangled Web, read the entire review here.

If you like hardboiled PI fiction and are willing to try something a little different from me, I think you'll like this one. And you can grab it free now![image error]