Small Crimes

Starred review from August 11, 2008
Zeltserman’s breakthrough third crime novel deserves comparison with the best of James Ellroy. Joe Denton, a corrupt cop, has just been paroled from the county jail in Bradley, Mass., after serving seven years for his drug-fueled assault on D.A. Phil Coakley, whose face was horribly disfigured in the attack. Denton’s parents, with whom he’s staying temporarily, are uncomfortable having him back in their lives. Likewise, Denton’s former colleagues on the force are uneasy. Gang boss Manny Vassey, who’s ill with terminal cancer, threatens to cut a deal with Coakley that would expose the tangled webs of graft and violence that have governed Bradley. When the local sheriff demands that Denton take out either Vassey or Coakley to preserve the town’s dirty secrets, Denton’s hopes for a return to some version of normality are dashed. Zeltserman (Fast Lane
) pulls no punches, even as he makes Denton’s manipulations, evasions and self-deceptions comprehensible.

August 1, 2008
Former high-school hero turned corrupt cop Joe Denton returns to his Vermont hometown after seven years in jail, and nobody is happy about it. Not District Attorney Phil Coakley, whose face Joe mutilated with a letter opener; not local crime boss Manny Vassey; not the spectacularly corrupt county sheriff, Dan Pleasant; not even Joes ex-wife or his parents. Within a day of his release, the disgraced but contrite former cop is being hounded by the D.A., menaced by Vasseys psychotic son, and ordered by Pleasant to kill Vassey. In his small hometown, theres no place to hide. Zeltserman, who self-published his first novel, uses a spare, matter-of-fact style to ratchet up the tension and the inevitability of a violent end to the story. He also manages the neat trick of subtlely undermining Joes apparent contrition. Small Crimes has plenty of crime, but obsession, hubris, and evil, pure and impure, are at the heart of this vivid noir.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)