shadow

IN HIS SHADOW

David Zeltserman

Mystery and Suspense Press £14.49

Reviewed by Keith Miles

If you like a protagonist who commits murder, parricide, incest and just about everything else in between bouts of heavy drinking, this is the novel for you. If, on the other hand, you prefer a flawed hero with redeeming virtues, a watertight plot and some subtlety in human relationships, then steer well-clear.

The problem with IN HIS SHADOW is that its author stays too completely in the shadow of his mentor, Jim Thompson, to whom the book is dedicated. Its anti-hero, Johnny Lane, is a violent, amoral, stop-at-nothing private detective who treats women with contempt.

Lane can only solve problems by running away from them or by resorting to violence and murder. As a narrator, he's very unreliable, feeding us information that is later corrected and amplified. He also has the irritating habit of referring to his "faithful readers", stepping outside the novel to remind us that we are only involvedin a fictional tale.

On the credit side are some vivid confrontations, some neat twists, some weirdly interesting characters and an occasional burst of arresting dialogue. But they do not compensate for a novel that is gratuitously nasty and that has such a shaky grasp on its own time scheme. Jim Thompson was a master of terse, fast-moving, noir thrillers. He also knew how to pace a novel. Dave Zeltserman slows the action at key moments with flashbacks and is unable to match the laconic and wise-cracking style of his role model.

There are enough good things in the book to show that the author has real talent, but he needs to find a voice of his own, instead of trying to imitate someone else's.