Small Crimes

What can I say about Small Crimes. This book was, beyond a doubt, absolutely brilliant. There is no way you can put this one down once you begin--you won't want to anyway, believe me. Yes, there is an intriguing storyline with various contributing sub-plots all helping to fill in the total picture, but the strongest draw here is the characters. Forgive the redundance, but it is also the 'character' of the characters. Noone is all good guy, but noone is exactly all bad guy either. Like us here in the real world, Zeltserman's characters are a real mix of both. He's got a real hero in Small Crimes though, and here's where it gets murky (as life often does) because, what constitutes a hero, really. If you're looking for someone who is always perfect, always on the side of right, always being truthful and honorable, then look elsewhere. The 'hero' in this story is as flawed as they come, but in my book, a hero just the same. I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that ultimately, it's what's in the heart that makes a hero. He may have sinned and failed and destroyed and a hundred other vile things, but he still believes and hopes there is some measure of salvation for him. It won't take too long and you too will be believing and hoping right along with him that there is a small place for him in the corner of somebody's Heaven. You will adore Small Crimes and, like me, you will be anxiously awaiting Dave Zeltserman's next.

Those who know Dave Zeltserman's writing, either through the now closed and very much missed Hardluck Stories e-zine (shut down due to Dave's increasing success as a novelist with "Pariah" due out in October and "Killer" out next January among other projects and a movie deal) or his novel work, know that Dave Zeltserman looks at things from a dark point of view. That certainly is the case here in "Small Crimes." Former cop Joe Denton has spent the last seven years of his life in the county jail for a crime he most certainly did commit. Sentenced to sixteen to twenty-four years for arson, attempted murder, and maiming a district attorney strings were pulled to keep him at the local county jail. Released, Joe Denton will return home to Bradley, Vermont. He has lost his wife and daughters, a twelve year career in law enforcement, and has very limited prospects. Nobody in the area, including his parents whom he will be staying with at the start of his parole, wants him around. Certainly not the maimed district attorney whose face was stabbed 13 times by Joe in an attack that has left Phil Coakley virtually unrecognizable as human. Dan Pleasant, Sheriff of Bradley County, doesn't want Joe around either because Joe could lead investigators to Dan's own corruption. Then there is Manny Vessey and his son who are the local mafia crime bosses and they don't want Joe around. While everyone involved, except for Phil, is graceful Joe kept his mouth shut during his incarceration, they don't trust him to continue to do so and his being around serves as a constant reminder of the past and those secrets. Before he leaves town, and everyone has made it clear to him that he should, Sheriff Dan Pleasant wants Joe to complete one final job. Manny is dying in a local hospital because of terminal cancer. Phil Coakley visits every single day using the bible and salvation as leverage in a hope to get Manny to confess to all he knows. Manny isn't the hard edged man he once was and facing death closing in on him just might start talking. That could send everyone around, including Joe, to prison and worse. So, Sheriff Pleasant wants either Manny killed or Joe can finish the job on Phil and put him out of his misery. Killing either one solves the problem as the Sheriff is concerned and he doesn't care which one dies. Joe cares and figures there has to be a way of solving the issue without doing more damage let alone killing anyone. Joe came out promising to keep to the straight and narrow for himself as well as an attempt to correct the past as best he could and get his family back. But, Sheriff Pleasant isn't the only one putting pressure on Joe Denton to go back on his plans and do what needs to be done by any means necessary. The problems rain down upon him and the pressure mounts as Joe fights to make things finally right. As in "Fast Lane" and "Bad Thoughts" Dave Zeltserman takes a flawed narrator who could be anyone and puts him in an everyday situation that could

This is one terrific book by a great writer. A cop turned bad ruins the life of a local DA and goes to prison for the crime. He gets out 7 years later and is immediatley entangled in more nefarious deeds that could either give him freedom or send him back to prison for life. The plot is too delicious to give away here except to say that the story is modern noir at its best with great characters terrific prose and non-stop action. The ending is clever and totally believable. This is a book that you will not be able to put down. I look forward to more from Mr. Zeltserman in the future.

Many years ago, I interviewed the now late Robert Cormier, the author of young adult classics "The Chocolate War" and "I Am The Cheese." Cormier started his career writing adult fiction. Most of his early works focused on working-class French-Canadians struggling to find the American Dream. After the success of his first book "Now and at the Hour" (1960), Cormier's publisher wanted him to write an epic on the French-Canadian experience. The publisher pictured a 1,000-page opus that would tell the story of French-Canadian family spanning generations. Cormier gave it a go, but he just couldn't make it work. The canvas was too large. "I like working small," Cormier said. So instead of the epic, Cormier wrote "A Little Raw on Monday Mornings" (1963), the very personal story of a young French-Canadian woman struggling with an unwanted pregnancy. My conversation with Cormier came to mind as I was reading Dave Zeltserman's crime novel "Small Crimes." You couldn't find two more disparate writers, but both novelists understand the power of a smaller stage. Small stories can produce big results and unveil universal truths. That's the secret to Zeltserman's fascinating novel about small town corruption and the consequences that follow. Unlike many crime writers today addicted to glamorous, far-fetched shoot-outs, outrageously high-concept plots, and the superhero-like-antics of protagonists, Zeltserman mines the ordinary for the extraordinary. So instead of a comic book, Zeltserman's readers get a tightly-wrought, character-driven neo-noir thriller that feels like it might be happening - right now. Zeltserman's writing in "Small Crimes" has been compared to Jim Thompson's and the assessment is dead-on (although Novelist Ed Gorman disagrees). Thompson explored the lives of nihilistic losers on the fringe of society by expertly using first-person narrative. Every character in a Thompson novel is a flawed and damaged personality. Zeltserman's "Small Crimes" plays in that sandbox as well. It starts with his complex protagonist Joe Denton, an ex-cop recently released from prison for horribly disfiguring the face of the local district attorney by stabbing him repeatedly with a letter opener. Denton is a two-bit loser living in a world of delusion. He's the unreliable narrator of "Small Crimes" and his view of the world is constantly being challenged by the reality of his situations and his interactions with the other characters. Joe incorrectly thinks he's a changed man: he's ridden himself of his cocaine and gambling addictions and believes the slate is clean for him. That he can simply waltz back into the lives of his parents and wife and daughters and all will be forgiven. The problem with poor Joe is that he's white-washed just how much damage and destruction he wrought on his loved ones. His mother can barely look at him. His father thinks he's a sociopath (which is likely true) and his wife has fled with their daughters and wants absolutely nothing