I just finished Dave Zeltserman's Small Crimes this morning, and it's
my favorite book of the year so far as new fiction goes. Zeltserman's
small town bad cop noir obviously owes a lot to Jim Thompson, but it
ends up being more than an imitation because the only person
Zeltserman's protagonist is fooling is himself. Everyone else seems to
have him figured out. Since it's in first person and the narrator is
unreliable the reader has to rely on external cues to try and figure
out to what extent the main character is deceiving himself. It's a
very effective technique for keeping the book interesting. If it had
been more straightforward the story would have had less impact. All in
all a well told tale.
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