Flashback: Dave Zeltserman - Interview / Guest Blog

This month sees the publication of the brilliant KILLER by Dave Zeltserman.

In Killer, Leonard March walks free from jail after fourteen years' hard time served after turning state's witness against his Mafia boss Salvatore Lombard. Killer is the third part of Zeltserman's "man-out-of-prison" trilogy – the other two being Small Crimes and Pariah- and it’s a hell of a read.

Look what the big kids say:

‘Killer is a major novel of crime and likely the book that will win Dave Zeltserman a much wider audience.’ Ed Gorman

‘To put it simply, Killer is a brilliant character study that will rip the literary rug right out from under the reader's tightly-curled toes.’ Corey Wilde, The Drowning Machine."

Dave was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about Killer and his writing in general in January this year and he also wrote a guest blog for me last November.Here they both are!.

PDB: Dave, in twenty five words or less, can you pitch me your new novel KILLER?

Dave: A meditative look into the mind of a killer.

PDB: Small Crimes, Pariah and Killer all have protagonists who are very bad men that have done some very bad things. Doesn't this go against the mandates of creative writing classes in that the 'heroes' of those books aren't sympathetic?
Dave: I think most readers are going to find Leonard March, the protagonist of Killer, a sympathetic character, at least through most of the book. Yeah, he was a hit man, but he leaves prison as little more than a toothless old wolf howling at the moon. He's got all these forces working against him, and he's introspective as he tries to figure out how he got to where he is.

Kyle Nevin, my protagonist from Pariah, is a different beast entirely. Kyle is a force of nature, and like of forces of nature--hurricanes, tidal waves, volcanoes--it can be fascinating to see the destruction that he brings those unfortunates that get in his way.

Just as noir masters like James M. Cain and Jim Thompson could keep readers fascinated watching their noir protagonists inevitable descent into hell, I think the same is true with Kyle, except I think even more so given his utterly destructive and unrepentant nature.

PDB: Is the location of Killer an important part of the story?

Dave : Most of Killer takes place around Boston, but not really in it, with areas like Waltham, Revere and Winthrop taking center stage, but the flavor of these areas are important to the story and atmosphere. Boston is much more important to Pariah as a lot of South Boston mob lore is worked into the novel.

PDB: You once said that writing Small Crimes was a very 'instinctive' thing? What did you mean by that?
Dave: At some point the subconscious taking over, and adding strong thematic elements that weren't planned, or necessarily intended at an intellectual level but worked their way into the book regardless.

Let me give you a more concrete example with Killer. Killer is written as alternating present and past chapters. Before I started writing I had the present chapters outlined at a very detailed level, but I was going to wring it with the past chapters, and make each one Leonard committing one of his mob hits.

At some point that changed without any real planning, and instead the past chapters ended up having a strong arc of their own, and connecting to the present chapters in ways I hadn't anticipated.

PDB: Has your writing process changed over the years?

Dave: Not really. I still write very detailed outlines before starting. I still find myself deviating from these outlines as the book becomes something organic--a living thing so to speak. But while new and unexpected plot threads and characters are born, I always end up working my way back to the original outline.

I tend to struggle with my 1000 to 1500 words a day like I've always have, and then go on a blind writing fury when I get within 7000 or so words of the ends, finishing those in one sitting. The only real change is I'm closer to the mark now when I finish.

My earlier books needed far more revising--Pariah and Killer and others needed very little revising from their first drafts.

PDB: What's in the pipeline for Dave Zeltserman in 2010?

Dave: Other than Killer, I have two more novels and a bunch of short stories.

Outsourced is a different kind of crime novel than my 'man out of prison' novels. In this one a group of desperate software engineers come up with a brilliant plan to rob a bank with things not quite working out as planned. Think Ocean’s 11 and Falling Down, which not too surprisingly, John Tomko, who was a producer on both those movies, is involved in the film development of this, which has been optioned by Impact Pictures and Constantin Film.

The Caretaker of Lorne Field is not crime, and I think is a book that is really going to surprise readers who've gotten to know my crime fiction. The basic premise of this is that a field has been weeded for over 400 years by a succession of caretakers, with the mythology being if the field isn't weeded, the world will end. Now in the present day, the current Caretaker believes this myth but finds that most of the people in his small town no longer do, and his job becomes increasingly more difficult. A balancing act is performed through the book on whether he's crazy or knows something nobody else does.

As far as short stories, Julius Katz and Archie will live on in Ellery Queen, and I also have stories in the next Thuglit anthology and Damn Near Dead 2

Guest Blog: Vampire Crimes

When Paul asked me to guest blog for him, I thought I’d show a different side of me. Anyone who has heard of me has probably done so through my crime noir novels, Fast Lane, Small Crimes and Pariah. Well, I’ve also finished writing a hard-hitting ultra-violent vampire noir novel titled, Vampire Crimes. Think Sin City with vampires, and fuck no as far as any sensitive vampires and teen romances goes. What I’m giving Paul is a short excerpt to provide a flavor of the novel, with this excerpt showing Metcalf—who is probably my most sociopathic creation—doing a little research in his private lab. I hope folks enjoy this short but different take on vampires. --Dave

Vampire Crimes by Dave Zeltserman

Metcalf’s private lab was reminiscent of some nightmarish scene from the Island of Dr. Moreau, and like Moreau’s laboratory, was a place of pain and abomination. For Metcalf, the lab served dual purposes; it helped him gain insights into the effects of the virus, and it acted as a deterrent to the other vampires in the compound from thinking about challenging his authority. The test subjects were all infected with the vampire virus. Some were originally brought in as “cattle” and had the misfortune of being chosen for this capacity—which was a fate far worse than being milked until illness or anemia set in; others were members of the compound who needed to be made examples of. All of the test subjects had their arms and lower halves removed; which made them appear like grotesque doll-like creatures. Some were pinned to their tables by spikes through their shoulders, others were chained along the walls. All of them were in the midst of experiments that would’ve made even the infamous Joseph Mengelev cringe in horror.

Metcalf strolled casually around his lab examining his experiments. Those that were capable of screaming out fought hard to hold their tongues; they knew their situations, however horrific, could be made worse. Moans escaped from a few of them, whimpers from a few others, but most kept quiet. Metcalf stopped at a table where a test subject had reached six months without being fed. The subject had shriveled to the point of looking more like a prune than anything that could’ve ever been human. Its eyes appeared dead, its mouth gaping open. Metcalf pulled the spikes out from its shoulders and carried it to a scale. Only thirty-four pounds. Before the experiment was started, the subject had weighed more than double that. Metcalf brought it back to its table and pounded the spikes back where they’d been. Not even a whimper. Metcalf had doubts whether it was still alive. If it were dead it would be the first time that he witnessed a vampire dying due to starvation. Using an eyedropper, Metcalf squeezed a drop of human blood into the thing’s gaping mouth. A sucking sound came from it.

“Still alive, huh?” Metcalf noted.

He squeezed the remaining blood from the eyedropper into the gaping hole. The glaze over the vampire’s eyes faded and a flicker of life shone in them. Metcalf slowly fed it an ounce of blood, and as he did so, the vampire plumped out like a raisin that had been dropped in water. Its stirred slightly, its tongue pushing out, then choking noises rattled from its throat as it pleaded for more blood. Metcalf continued to feed it blood until it was restored to its former condition. Four ounces of blood had brought the vampire fully back. The vampire lay with its chest heaving sucking in oxygen. Metcalf scribbled notes on a clipboard that hung on the edge of the table.

“Please, no more…I’m begging…end it…please…end it…” the vampire forced out, its voice not much more than a hoarse whisper.

Metcalf looked up and made a shushing noise to the vampire before moving on to check on other experiments. Although some of the vampires were made into these “guinea pigs” to teach the others in the compound a lesson, Metcalf took no sadistic pleasure in what he did, but neither did he feel the slightest hint of remorse. As far as he was concerned, these creatures didn’t even rate as lab mice, and he felt the same compassion towards them that a scientist might towards bacteria that was being examined under a microscope. These experiments allowed Metcalf to understand the virus at a more practical level, and that was all that mattered to him.

Smiling, he thought about how he could write a book on the subject…

Bio: Dave Zelsterman's novels include, Fast Lane, Small Crimes, Pariah and Bad Thoughts. His newest novel is entitled KILLER. His Dark Crime Fiction website is here: http://www.davezeltserman.com/index.html