Order BAD THOUGHTS here
(also reviewed)
Order OUTSOURCED here
"What do you think about Bill Shannon?" Dornich asked after the sergeant got back behind his desk.
"A smart guy. Maybe too smart. But he's a good cop when he's not acting like a wacko."
I read many, many cop novels every year. Whether the protagonist is a highly trained FBI profiler with a portfolio of black belts or just a private snoop with a whiskey breath and brass knuckles in his trench coat pockets, these stories all have one this in common: they are driven by a single investigation. A "case", if you will. Those readings have several effects on me. 1) Busting the mystery before the final page has become somewhat of a sport to me, 2) I've became hard to impress with this narrative model and 3) I've become a little too easy to impress when a mystery doesn't respect the classic tropes. Dave Zeltserman wrote the Bill Shannon novels BAD THOUGHTS and BAD KARMA before striking gold with PARIAH and the Julius Katz & Archie stories. It was such a peculiar reading experience that I couldn't really say whether this is a mystery, an airport thriller or a strange police procedural. One thing sure, BAD THOUGHTS is so unorthodox and unpredictable, it managed to keep my attention.
Bill Shannon is a cop. He is a detective for the Cambridge, Massachusetts police. He is a good cop, a good husband and a good person, about 350 days a year. Every year in February, he gradually clams up and ends up disappearing for a few days. Nobody knows where he's going each time, not even Shannon himself. He has these blackouts. His yearly disappearance always comes around February 10, the anniversary of his mother's murder by Herbert Winters. Thirteen year old Shannon has suffered long hours to Winters himself, having his fingers broken several times over, before finally killing him. Two decades later, women are being killed in the same fashion than Shannon's mother again, during his blackout period. Is he going insane or has Herbert Winters risen from the dead?
The first thing that'll jump at you when reading BAD THOUGHTS is the dramatic and grandiloquent prose. The world Bill Shannon lives in is dark and tormented. It's kind of a one-note song too. But that's the main issue BAD THOUGHTS suffers from. I understand that Shannon is meant to remain ambiguous throughout the novel, but the polite distance Zeltserman keeps from his protagonist leaves nothing but the long streak of dramatic events to carry the tension. What I'm trying to say here is that when I read a novel about a man's tormented past, I like it to be more intimate. Does it make sense? In BAD THOUGHTS, there is a support cast who investigate Shannon's past through the prism of recent, violent events, so we get every scabrous detail, yet no real insight about how it molded Shannon into who he is, outside short but great psychotherapy scenes. A more intimate approach of Shannon (maybe a first person narration) would, I believe, have smoothed out the prose issue.
Bill Shannon is a cop. He is a detective for the Cambridge, Massachusetts police. He is a good cop, a good husband and a good person, about 350 days a year. Every year in February, he gradually clams up and ends up disappearing for a few days. Nobody knows where he's going each time, not even Shannon himself. He has these blackouts. His yearly disappearance always comes around February 10, the anniversary of his mother's murder by Herbert Winters. Thirteen year old Shannon has suffered long hours to Winters himself, having his fingers broken several times over, before finally killing him. Two decades later, women are being killed in the same fashion than Shannon's mother again, during his blackout period. Is he going insane or has Herbert Winters risen from the dead?
The first thing that'll jump at you when reading BAD THOUGHTS is the dramatic and grandiloquent prose. The world Bill Shannon lives in is dark and tormented. It's kind of a one-note song too. But that's the main issue BAD THOUGHTS suffers from. I understand that Shannon is meant to remain ambiguous throughout the novel, but the polite distance Zeltserman keeps from his protagonist leaves nothing but the long streak of dramatic events to carry the tension. What I'm trying to say here is that when I read a novel about a man's tormented past, I like it to be more intimate. Does it make sense? In BAD THOUGHTS, there is a support cast who investigate Shannon's past through the prism of recent, violent events, so we get every scabrous detail, yet no real insight about how it molded Shannon into who he is, outside short but great psychotherapy scenes. A more intimate approach of Shannon (maybe a first person narration) would, I believe, have smoothed out the prose issue.
"Yeah, these kids out there are nuts."
"Not just the kids. You can just call someone the wrong name and have a Magnum .357 shoved up your ass. I'll tell you, through, it will clear away hemorrhoids better than anything I know. You might want to tell your asshole buddy Joe Wiley that."
What BAD THOUGHTS has for itself is absolute unpredictability and an unorthodox approach to some clichés. For example, Shannon and his partner DiGrazia are not exactly your typical protagonist cops. They don't value human dignity and presumption of innocence above all things. They are exactly the opposite. They behave like antagonist cops, make overbearing assumptions, wisecrack when it's not time. I hot a huge kick out of this. It's such an open defiance to conventions of genre. Also, the savant manner with which Dave Zeltserman alternates Bill Shannon's professional and psychological meltdown keeps the plot fun, because sometimes they overlap with a different point of view character. It keeps the mystery alive and important variables of the plot in the shadows until the very end. It could have used more character-driven scenes to layer its plot though. Not many characters apart from Shannon, DiGrazia and Shannon's psychotherapist have a strong identity.
Despite underwhelming character development and relying too often on shock value, BAD THOUGHTS is a surprisingly dynamic novel. It's a page-turner. It's fun and easy to read. I don't have an articulate reason why I liked this novel. It's fun and the plot is absolutely crazy. It seemed to have been thoroughly brainstormed and I know from experience that brainstorming can be the most creative activity. I named you several flaws I thought the novel suffered from, but when it was all said and done, I liked it. It worked. It has this alchemy that connects the dots in between the words. As long as you stimulate my fun gland, you're OK with me. BAD THOUGHTS was good, not great, it's better suited to serial killer novels aficionados, but I had a good time with it. Some books instill not-so-rational reactions from me. That's why I read.
THREE STARS