Dave Zeltserman - Killer

Mean like bad whiskey and sophisticated like good scotch, Pariah is a rare find and a scorching read. This accomplished novel features a great blend of strong narrative voice and a realistic, multi-layered plot that lays bare the dark soul of South Bostons underworld. In Kyle Nevin, his main character, Zeltserman has a dark Celine creation that is as literary as he is noir. To my mind this novel provides the final word on the Southies demise and does so more artfully than its predecessors. Brimming with historical anecdote, rife with keen sociological insight, Zeltserman invests his novel with a veracity found mostly in non-fiction. However, this is a novel and a damn entertaining one, one that reminds us that reading the book truly is more informing and riveting than seeing the movie Cortright McMeel

Small Crimes

Zeltserman delves deeply into his specialty, an unorthodox look at the criminal mind the unlucky guy who can fool himself way too long. It kept me turning pages and glancing over my shoulder Vicki Hendricks

Small Crimes is a superbly crafted tale that takes the best from mid-century noir fiction and drops it expertly into the twenty-first century. Like the very best of modern noir, this is a story told in shades of grey. Immensely subtle, and written with a rare maturity and confidence, the story of troubled ex-con/ex-cop Joe Denton always keeps you guessing. This deserves to be massive. At the very least, it must surely be Dave Zeltsermans breakthrough novel Allan Guthrie

So noir...all the way to a surprisingly bold ending... Fairly zips along Guardian

Zeltserman creates an intense atmospheric maze for readers to observe Dentons twisting and turning between his rocks and hard places. Denton is one of the best-realised characters I have read in this genre, and the powerfully noirish, uncompromising plot, which truly keeps one guessing from page to page, culminates with a genuinely astonishing finale Sunday Express

Zeltsermans breakthrough crime novel deserves comparison with the best of James Ellroy Publishers Weekly

to ed gorman

What if I gave them Salvatore Lombard?

That gets my lawyers attention. It would have to, me offering up Bostons top crime boss. Up until that moment hed only been going through the motions, halfheartedly suggesting that he might be able to cut me a deal for thirty years, but using a tone which indicated he didnt really believe that. I cant blame him. Ive already seen the same videotapes and wire tap transcripts that he has. The state has me dead to rights for a long laundry list of crimes including extortion, a shitload of Mann Act violations and attempted murder. My busting up an undercover cops skull with a crowbar was only icing on the cake as far as they were concerned.

Youre sure about this? he asks.

I nod. This wasnt a spur of the moment decision on my part. It was something Id been mulling over for weeks, ever since I realized someone in Lombards organization mustve given up the operation. This was the reason I fired the lawyer Lombard had cherry-picked for me, and had my wife, Jenny, find me a virgin one, someone not connected. Im forty-eight, and maybe betraying Lombard means Im never going to see forty-nine, but Ill be fucked if Im going to be buried in a prison cell for the next thirty years.

And you can tie him to all this?

Yeah.

That might change things, he admits. Let me see what I can do.

His face is flushed now. He stands up abruptly and knocks on the small square Plexiglas window embedded in the locked door, and two guards come into the room to escort me to my cell. Less than an hour later Im brought back to the same room. My lawyers waiting for me, his face still flushed, maybe even a bit shiny at this point. I take the chair opposite him, and we both wait patiently until the guards leave the room and close the door behind them.

If you can really deliver Salvatore Lombard

I can.

Then I can get you fourteen years, he says. This is a gift given what they have on you.