won top praise and has been translated into six languages. His novels Small Crimes and Pariah were both named by the Washington Post as best books of the year. Small Crimes topped National Public Radio's list of best crime and mystery novels of 2008 and is being made into a feature film.Zeltserman applied the Page 69 Test to Cruel, the latest Morris Black thriller, and reported the following:
Cruel is a crime thriller in which Morris Brick and the gang are hunting yet another serial killer, this time the Nightmare Man. But it’s also mysteries nested within each other like a matryoshka doll, where each solved mystery leads to an even more mystifying mystery. On page 69, Morris and Charlie Bogle are searching for an actor named Benjamin Chandler who could provide a key to finding the identity of the Nightmare Man. From the page:Visit Dave Zeltserman's website.
Bogle pulled his late-model Lexus that he’d bought used with eighty thousand miles on it into the circular drive, and he and Morris, with Parker plodding along, tried the front door. If the bell rang inside, they couldn’t tell—either it was broken or the construction was too solid to leak out any noise. Whichever it was, no one answered. The same after Bogle rapped his knuckles against the oak door. It didn’t surprise either of them when they investigated the back of the house and found the power line had been cut. Nor when they saw that a panel had been punched out from one of the patio doors. Neither bothered to mention the obvious—that the power line was cut to disable the alarm system.Is this representative of the book? That’s a tough question to answer. The book is filled with twists and turns and since it changes gears so many times I’m not sure any page early on would be representative, especially Page 69 which covers more of the routine investigation.
My Book, The Movie: Cruel.
--Marshal Zeringue