Customer Reviews

Dying Memories/Godchild (2 in 1 Edition)

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In Dying Memories by Dave Zeltserman, Boston newspaper reporter Bill Conway is in trouble. The worst kind of trouble possible. He's been accused of murdering an ex-girlfriend and her fiancé, and not only does he retain no recollection of the event, he swears he's become embroiled in a conspiracy that involves a major drug company, the police, and maybe even the U.S. government. And the crime reporter has the proof and the front-page cover story to prove it.

I've read Dave Zeltserman's "man out of prison" series and since then have become hooked on a writer whom I believe is a contemporary master of the noir genre. I don't give that accolade out lightly since I'm still learning the craft myself. In fact, I give the title "master" only to the likes of a few: Charlie Huston, Boston Terran, Michael Connelly, Don Winslow and a maybe a handful of others among them. But the Boston native's new offering is more than just noir. It's psychological suspense thriller in its purist paranoid Hitchcockian form. Another rave I'm not passing on lightly.

The novel, which begins with a cold blooded murder that occurs in plain daylight in a popular Boston common, seems to innocently (if you'll excuse the pun) start off as a police procedural, a form I most definitely would expect Zeltserman to attack with his usual skills. But quickly enough it becomes apparent that this novel is more than that as memory flashbacks to Conway's troubled and abusive childhood become mixed with new memories created in real-time. Memories that might in fact be manufactured by some evil goons, one of whom in particular has pink skin and beady little eyes. The goons wear black, wield hypodermic needles and transport themselves in a white unmarked van. In pure noir tradition, there's also a beautiful woman involved who manages to attract the newspaper man into her life and bed. And you-guessed-it, he's only just met her.

Dying Memories is so tight and tension-filled it just might qualify as "The Book to Keep You Up All Night of the Week." One thing is for sure, it will keep you guessing until the very end. Just as importantly (and this is where all Zeltserman fans luck out), it also represents a new path the noir novelist is taking with his writing. No doubt my next review will be singing the praises of Dave Zeltserman, master of the psychological suspense thriller.