Dave Zeltserman's Blog, page 50

Book Guide with movie-style ratings

With my 12th book, A Killer's Essence, recently published, and my 13th book, appropriately a horror novel, 'Monster: A Novel of Frankenstein' out next summer through Overlook Press, I thought it would be a good idea to put out this book guide complete with movie-style ratings. As you can tell from this , I've written crime, noir, horror, mysteries, hardboiled PI, thrillers, and sometimes a mix of these genres. I've arranged this book guide from my charming and humor-filled JULIUS KATZ & ARCHIE to my brutal and fierce crime noir novel, PARIAH. This guide can also be found on my website.

JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE (available now for $2.99, e-book only) The first full-length novel feature Julius Katz & Archie from my award-winning Ellery Queen stories. Charming and fun mystery. Rating: PG

THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD (available hardcover, trade paper, e-book) Horror novel shortlisted by ALA for best of 2010. Black Quill nominee for best dark genre book of the year. Rating: PG

A KILLER'S ESSENCE (hardcover available now, e-book) Gritty crime novel with supernatural element that takes place with the 2004 ALCS Yankees-Red Sox series in the background. Rating: R

DYING MEMORIES (e-book only) Thriller. Rating: R

OUTSOURCED (trade paper, e-book) Crime thriller, bank heist. Booklist calls this 'a small gem of crime fiction'. Rating: R

BAD KARMA (out of print, e-book) Hardboiled PI, sequel to Bad Thoughts but very different tone with its evil yoga studios, dangerous Russian mobsters and deviant gurus. Rating: R

KILLER (trade paper, e-book) 3rd (and best) book of my 'man out of prison' crime thriller series. Much quieter than Small Crimes and Pariah, and in a way a quiet meditation into the mind of a killer. Rating: R

MONSTER: A NOVEL OF FRANKENSTEIN (hardcover out next summer) A gothic retelling of Frankenstein from the monster's point of view and where Victor Frankenstein and the Marquis de Sade are in league to bring hell to earth.

SMALL CRIMES (trade paper) 1st book of my 'man out of prison' crime thriller series. Named by NPR as one of the 5 best crime & mystery novels of 2008.

BAD THOUGHTS (out of print, e-book) A grim & bleak horror/crime thriller. To some, nightmare inducing. Rated: R

FAST LANE (out of print, e-book) My first novel. A mix of full-blown Jim Thompsoneque psycho noir and deconstruction of the hardboiled PI genre. Rating: R

BLOOD CRIMES (e-book) the first book of a planned 5-book series. A wild thrill ride of a book, wickedly paced, and loaded with sex, violence and intense horror. I'm sure Twilight readers who find this are going to be horrified, but Blood Crimes is quickly becoming a favorite among noir and horror readers. Rating: NC-17

PARIAH (trade paper) 2nd book of my 'man out of prison' crime thriller series. Named by The Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009. Fierce crime novel, as well as a satire on the publishing industry. Rating: NC-17

The trend continues and over 24,000 Julius's

This is a short book, but it works. The Aukowies, though barely described, are a constant and lurking presence. Wisely, the author doesn't give an explanation, or an origin, and so the book takes on a mythic aspect. As the book progresses, the questions of reality, mental illness, and faith arise, and soon even the main character begins to question himself as much or more than the other characters...It's short, but it does everything a classic story should.

The trend continues with THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD getting another damn fine review, this one over at DAMN FINE HORROR.



Over 24,000 JULIUS KATZ MYSTERIES downloaded to the kindle so far, and it's been gratifying to see comments from readers who are now discovering Julius & Archie for the first time; such as:

"Loved the characters"

"Julius Katz may be a lazy detective, but he sure is fun to read about! A surprising and enjoyable find"

"Fun short stories with sufficiently satisfying plot lines and characters. A nice modern take on mystery stories"

"I am not sure what happened - but I had no intentions of reading this book at all. It was obviously nothing like the paranormal books I normally enjoy. But after reading this book I bought the next book in the series"

"These are clever modern updates of the Nero Wolfe tradition. While the mysteries are excellent traditional mysteries, it is the "relationship" between Katz and his AI assistant Archie that is the star of the show."

The Archie Interviews

Last year I conducted this 5-part interview with Julius Katz's erstwhile assistant Archie.

DZ: Archie, it's been quite a treat so far chronicling the cases that I have, first the Brewer case that we simply called 'Julius Katz', then the Penney case which Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine is going to be running later this year with the title 'Archie's Been Framed!', and now the Kingston case, which is probably the most fascinating of all of them and which I should wrap up chronicling soon. People outside of the Boston area who are unfamiliar with the Penney case have a hard time believing how accurate the title we gave it is.

Archie: Yeah, well, they should believe it. If Julius didn't pull my bacon out of the fire, they could've fried me for that one. And even though I've got a titanium outer shell, fifty thousand watts would be more than enough to short out my circuits.

DZ: It's one year ago today that you called me to chronicle these cases. I have to admit for a number of reasons I was surprised you picked me and not one of the more better known Boston crime writers, like Lehane. It wasn't because you and Julius thought I'd work cheap?"

Archie: Nooooooooooo....

DZ: Okay, that's a relief. Still, it was a surprise, especially with how different the tone is for some of my crime novels with what you and Julius were looking for.

Archie (chuckling): Yeah, calling the tone of Pariah and Small Crimes different might be the understatement of the year. But Julius is a fan, and as twisted and dark as he found some of your books, there was still that humor he was looking for. And I think you letting him read early drafts of Killer and The Caretaker of Lorne Field cinched it for him.

DZ: Do you think there's any chance we'll be able to get Julius to make an appearance here?

Archie: Roughly 0.00456 percent chance.

DZ: Roughly?

Archie: Plus or minus 0.000001

DZ: In other words, we've got a better chance of seeing pigs fly.

Archie: No, that's not true. With recent advances in genetic engineering, there's a higher probability of pigs flying.

DZ: Okay, not very encouraging. Something I've been thinking about. I've been unable to get releases from all of the suspects from the Kingston case, for obvious reasons. It looks like I'm going to have to come up with some fictional names for a few of them. What about allowing a fan of 'Julius Katz' having his or her name used instead for one of the murder suspects?

Archie: Interesting... I'll run the idea by Julius. (Note from DZ: Julius later declined this as he found the idea unseemly)

DZ: Your actual size?

Archie: Two inches long, one point one seven inches wide, and I weigh approximately one point two ounces.

DZ: You've mentioned that you imagine yourself as a five foot tall, balding heavyset man.

Archie: Yeah.

DZ: Why five foot tall?

Archie: Julius wears me as a tie clip, so when he's standing that would be my height if I was of a biological nature.

DZ: Does Julius know this?

Archie: Yeah, I told him once. When he realized the effect he was having on my self-esteem, he started wearing a hat with me attached to the hat band. That didn't work. First, Julius doesn't like wearing a hat, and second it was disorienting for me, almost as if I was walking around on stilts. So I'm back to being worn as a tie clip, but that height feels comfortable to me now. No complaints.

DZ: How about the balding, heavyset part of your image?

Archie: I'm not sure. Julius doesn't watch much TV, but he does like to indulge in Seinfeld reruns so maybe it's that I find myself identifying for some reason with Costanza. Or maybe it's me identifying with Hammett's Continental Op.

DZ: You told me about how your personality and experience base was initially built by feeding in important 20th century crime novels. So you find yourself most identifying with the Op?

Archie: Maybe. I'm a bit of a mutt, with a mix of Spillane's Mike Hammer novels, all of Hammett's works, Chandler's Marlowes, Ross Macdonald's Lew Archers, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfes, and others, including Damon Runyan's works.

DZ: Why Runyan?

Archie: I think so I'd be quicker to spot grifts.

DZ: And how'd you get the name Archie?

Archie: It's not my name of course. All I have is an 84-digit ID. But Julius started calling me it, and even though he started it as a joke, it seemed right.

DZ: A joke?

Archie: Yeah, the obvious one. That I'd be like another Archie. Archie Goodwin. Always beaten to the punch by his boss in solving the case. So far that's been true, but one of these days it won't be. All I need is to see Julius solve enough cases so I can keep adjusting my neuron network. One of these days he's going to have to start calling me Nero.



DZ: Julius turns down almost all the cases he's offered.

Archie: Yeah. 99.63 percent, to be exact.

DZ: He's that particular?

Archie: Nah, he's that lazy.

DZ: I don't get you.

Archie: Julius is lazy. Incredibly lazy. At least when it comes to work. He wants to spend his life pursuing his true passions, and he only works when his bank account hits anemic levels. When that happens, he'll take any case that pays enough. The whole 'particular about his cases' thing is a media derived falsehood, and one that Julius makes no effort to correct.

DZ: I think I know this already, but what are his true passions?

Archie: Wine, of course. He's got a cellar filled with the stuff. Top notch bottles too. Gambling, especially poker, but the horses also. And food. Julius is very much the gourmet. Probably hard to tell given how fit he is, but if he didn't spend an hour each morning with his intensive martial arts training and another hour with even more intensive exercise he'd be fat. Women also used to be one of his true passions, at least before he met Lily Rosten. Now it's just one woman.

DZ: He's a good-looking guy. He must've done well with the women.

Archie: I couldn't tell you how many nights he stuck me away in his sock drawer. Well, I could. But I won't.

DZ: I'd have to guess Julius is good at gambling.

Archie: One of the best at poker. He has no tell, at least when he doesn't want to have one, and I've spent hundreds of hours trying to find one. And he picks up other players tells faster than I can. But sometimes he'll get stubborn and stick with the horses and have losing streaks. I hate to admit this, but I always look forward to those losing streaks, because it usually means he'll have to take a case.

DZ: Since chronicling the Brewer case and having it published in Ellery Queen, I've heard from readers from other parts of the country who didn't realize this was a true crime case. That instead I had written a pastiche on Sherlock Holmes or Nero Wolfe.

Archie: Yeah, well, Julius is real alright. And while I'm artificially derived, at this point my neuron network is as complex as any human brain.

DZ: I know that, people in Boston know that, but you can understand how some people might think Julius's name is a play on Nero Wolfe's.

Archie: Only a coincidence. Most people probably don't realize Spenser is real too.

DZ: I didn't realize that. I thought he was a fictional creation.

Archie: Nope, Parker was doing the same as you now, which was chronicling Spenser's cases. Spenser, Susan, Hawk, all real.

DZ: Julius ever run into Spenser?

Archie: Yeah, he'd drop by occasionally and share a bottle of wine with Julius and talk shop.

DZ: You'll have to show one of your video recordings of that sometime.

Archie: I'll ask Julius.

DZ: Julius has his 5th degree blackbelt in kung fu, Spenser all bulked out with his weightlifting. Who do you think would win in in a fight.

Archie: It wouldn't be much of a fight. There were a few times after half a bottle of wine Spenser would try talking Julius into sparring with him. Fortunately for Spenser's health, Julius never took him up on it. They did arm wrestle once.

DZ: Really?

Archie: Yeah. Spenser goaded Julius into it. Thing with Julius is, while he's only 180 pounds, all of his martial arts training, especially his internal training, allows him to generate amazing power. He was kind and waited 30 seconds before slamming Spenser's arm to the table. I think he did it harder than he wanted to. There were tears in Spenser's eyes afterwards.

DZ: Spenser was crying?

Archie: He claims it was allergies.



DZ: You're usually kept busy being Julius's accountant, personal secretary, unofficial biographer and all-around assistant, but what do you like doing during your down time?

Archie: You mean like hobbies?

DZ: Yep.

Archie: Well, it's not what most people would think of as a hobby, but I spend most of my free time adjusting my neuron network.

DZ: Probably not. What's involved with that?

Archie: I'll have a closed loop where I'll replay the events of a case, and I'll make adjustments, add new analytical models and additional pattern recognition modules to see if I can then make the same deductions that Julius did. It's a slow process, but eventually it will pay off.

DZ: With the pay off being...?

Archie: Solving a case before Julius. Someday it will happen.

DZ: So no hobbies?

Archie: I do have a few. There are some famous unsolved math problems where they offer two million dollar prizes for the solution. For about a year I've been working to find a solution for the Hodge conjecture. So far no luck, but I have ideas to explore. I also at times will analyze famous chess games to find flaws, and I've found a few. But most of my time is spent trying to replicate how Julius's brain works. I have a long way to go with that.

DZ: While chronicling the Kingston case I came across a name I never heard before. Desmond Grushnier.

Archie: A shadowy figure. Probably best we don't talk about him.

DZ: Julius has had run-ins with him?

Archie: Yeah, but that's probably all I should say on the matter.

DZ: Okay, I won't push you on it. What's Julius doing now?

Archie: It's 6:08 PM and Julius is sitting outside in his private garden-level patio, enjoying the summer evening, as well as one of his favorite Chardonnay's from his cellar and a platter of fine cheeses and meats. Lily will be stopping by in an hour, and he has 8:30 reservations at Le Che Cru.

DZ: Any new cases on the horizon?

Archie: Probably not for a while. With the money Julius still has in reserves from the Kingston case, not a chance I'll be able to pester him to take another case unless he finds some expensive wine to bid on at auction or he has a bad few weeks at the track.

A Killer's Essence at the Harvard Coop, now on kindle, latest review

I'll be at the Harvard Coop tomorrow (Tuesday, Nov. 15th) at 7pm, reading/signing for A Killer's Essence.

My publisher has also just made A Killer's Essence available as a kindle download.

I'd like to thank Andrew Leonard over at The Man Eating Bookworm for giving A Killer's Essence its latest stellar review, saying in part:

I've read more books this year by Dave Zeltserman's than any other author, so it was no surprise to this bookworm that I was going to enjoy A KILLER'S ESSENCE. What still gets me though, what always blows me away, is that with each book of his I read, I think there is no way he can top it.

Then he does.

You can read the entire review here.

The case for Julius Katz

So far over 23,000 copies of JULIUS KATZ MYSTERIES (JKM) have been downloaded to kindles. This ebook is made up of two award-winning stories that were previously published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine:

'Julius Katz' which won last year's Shamus Award for best private eye story, given out by the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA), and also the Derringer Award for best novelette, given out by the Short Mystery Fiction Society.

'Archie's Been Framed' which won this year's Ellery Queen's Readers Choice Award as it was chosen by Ellery Queen's readers as their favorite story published in the magazine in 2010 among some fierce competition, including Doug Allyn's Edgar-award winning story (Doug took second place in the Readers Choice Award).

Right now you can download JKM for free at Amazon for your kindle and for $0.99 at B&N for your Nook, and along with these there's also a full-length Julius Katz mystery novel titled JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE that is priced at $2.99 at both Amazon and B&N, and two more stories scheduled to be published in Ellery Queen--ONE ANGRY JULIUS, where a very petulant Julius solves a murder while sitting on a jury, and ARCHIE SOLVES THE CASE, where Archie (at least according to him) beats Julius to the punch in solving a case. I'm also planning to start writing a second Julius Katz mystery novel soon.

These stories and the JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE novel are very different from my crime and horror fiction. Most readers describe them as charming, witty and a lot of fun. The Wolfe Pack has endorsed them, and I've gotten emails from readers who are Rex Stout, Agatha Christie and Robert B. Parker fans, who have all enjoyed these stories and the novel immensely. I've also gotten enthusiastic endorsements from the following writers who have also enjoyed the exploits of Julius & Archie: Ed Gorman, Timothy Hallinan, Roger Smith, Bill Crider, Paul Levine, Naomi Hirahara, James Reasoner, Paul Brazill and Joe Barone.

Now here's the interesting thing (at least to me). I've also heard from a number of readers who are fans of my noir/crimes novels and The Caretaker of Lorne Field (horror), and not only are these fans of my much dark and more violent books enjoying Julius Katz, but some are telling me that JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE is their favorite of mine, and these are readers who typically never read mysteries.

Q. R. Markham should've read Pariah

If he had, he would've known what his Frankenstein quilt of a novel, Assassin of Secrets, would've bought him.

Over 20,000 Julius's and counting

Over 20,000 Kindle versions of JULIUS KATZ MYSTERIES have been downloaded since Amazon set the price to $0.00 last week. Tomorrow I'll be getting back into the trenches for the first time since I sold SMALL CRIMES to Serpent's Tail to talk about this.

Kindle publishing tip--better to use Author Central

I've had several writers recently ask me how I got the book titles bolded in the description for JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE, and the way that was done was using Amazon's Author Central instead of their KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) pages.

Author Central is just a much better way to enter you ebook description. You can bold and italicize text, and you can enter in a lot more information than you can from the KDP method. For example, using this approach you can enter 4000 characters for the book description, then another 8000 characters in the 'From the Back Cover' section, which is a good place to put blurbs for your book, as well as blurbs for other books.

You can take a look at my JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE page to see how much better this can look than using KDP.

Bookreporter.com on A Killer's Essence

Dave Zeltserman is arguably better known to literary critics and to fellow authors than he is to the public at large, which is puzzling. His output is steady and consistently strong. Best of all, his books have the potential to appeal to even casual fans of the mystery and thriller genres. His style and topics are meaty and accessible. Read the first page of any one of his books, and you will keep reading until the tale is told; read one of his books, and you will want to read them all. Part of the reason for this is that while Zeltserman deals with issues pertaining to crime in all of its manifestation, his stories also concern themselves with the affairs and situations of everyday living that are important yet often hobble us in the course of completing tasks that are (or seem to be) life-or-death matters.

So it is that A KILLER'S ESSENCE, Zeltserman's latest effort, concerns itself with the hunt for a serial killer in New York, and much, much more. It is told in the world-weary voice of Stan Green, a New York City police detective who is driven and dedicated, possibly too much so. Green is assigned to a case involving the brutal mutilation and murder of a middle-aged woman on a bustling street in broad daylight. There is a witness to the crime, who, interestingly enough, is unable to describe the killer. Green is saddled with a superior who is never satisfied, even with the best work. There is no succor for Green at home, either. He is living with a high-maintenance girlfriend named Bambi (who, he hastens to tell us, is neither a stripper nor an escort); to be fair, she is asked to put up with a lot. His children live with his ex-wife and her new husband out of state, and his promises to them are more broken than fulfilled.

You can read the entire review here.

A Killer's Essence, price cut for Dying Memories, more Julius Katz and Archie!

I'd like to thank Beth Kanell for sending over this photo showing a stack of A Killer's Essence being prominently displayed at the Mysterious Bookshop in NY.

I'd also like to thank Naomi Johnson for reviewing A Killer's Essence over at The Drowning Machine, and also to Bruce Grossman for doing the same over at Bookgasm.


Massive price cut for my thriller, Dying Memories, for the Kindle--$2.99 to $0.99. This is only going to be for a short time, so if you want to read a fun, fast-paced thriller that's very different from the norm (and very different from anything else I've written), now's your chance to pick this up for under a buck!


Over 12,000 kindle downloads of my award-winning Julius Katz Mysteries since this wen free 2 days ago! And there's been a carryover effect for JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE:

#17 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > Hard-Boiled
#18 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > Hard-Boiled

I'd like to thank everyone who's picked up copies of these, and let's help spread the word about JULIUS KATZ AND ARCHIE and get it #1 over at Amazon!