Body Scissors

by Michael Simon

Book Overview

The riveting sequel to Dirty Sally features Dan Reles, a New York-born Texas detective on the hunt for a drug kingpin.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670034436
• ISBN13: 9780670034437
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Great sequel to a dazzling debut novel

Michael Simon proves that Dirty Sally was no fluke. This masterful second novel in the Dan Reles detective series is just as riveting, gripping and engrossing as its predecessor. Corruption at the highest levels of government and business in Austin, Texas are at the core of this intricate confluence of storylines involving outsider police detective Dan Reles. A believable cast of colorful, funny, grotesque and sad characters inhabit this noirish world, brought vividly to life in this exciting page-turner.

Blast from the past part II

I was born and raised in Austin. How cool is it to have a fictional account my hometown,(home neighborhood for that matter) from my teens and up. WOW. Thanks. Well written, smart, exciting thriller. I'm telling my friends about it...and can't wait for book four!

above average

get your freak on. Characters are one of a kind. No one is good. Grim and gripping.

A novel equally as dark and gritty as its prequel, DIRTY SALLY

In 2004 Michael Simon immediately caught the attention of fans of noir fiction with DIRTY SALLY, his dark, gritty debut novel. Set in Austin, Texas in 1988, it introduced Homicide Detective Dan Reles, the only Yankee or Jew on the force, a complex and brooding man trying to stay upright in a crooked world. In BODY SCISSORS, Simon continues to build on the topics and themes introduced in DIRTY SALLY while further developing Reles's life and personality, using the dirty underside of Austin as an angry backdrop. BODY SCISSORS is set in 1991 at the beginning of the Persian Gulf War. Reles is living with Rachel Velez, the widow of Joey Velez, his best friend and homicide partner. The opening passages, wherein Reles and Rachel seem constantly on the verge of connection, foreshadow the events of the book on a number of levels. Reles is assigned to assist in the investigation of an apparent assassination attempt on Virginia Key, an activist community leader. The attempt on Key's life is a failure but results in the death of her daughter while leaving her son in a coma. From the moment of her introduction Key is an enigma who captures the attention --- and appreciation --- of Detective James Torbett. While Torbett struggles with his attraction to Key, Reles attempts to unravel the surprising connection between the attack upon Key and the seedy Austin drug scene. Key's personal and professional past have the potential to explode at any moment, but she is not the only one with a past; everyone, including Reles and Rachel, has secrets. As Reles's investigation uncovers a surprising revelation about Joey's past, Reles and Rachel join Key in becoming the targets of a powerful madman who seeks to enact a penultimate revenge upon each and every one of them. Reles's Austin is not the Chamber of Commerce dream that hosts an annual music festival and free weekly events in front of city hall, and in general is a cultural and financial boomtown. Rather, it is a city cast in shadow, where actions at the highest and lowest levels are carried out in a furtive manner with dangerous ends, where one who expects betrayal, pain and death is never disappointed. BODY SCISSORS is a story populated by evil characters on both sides of the law, in which the sins of the past fulfill their promise of dire consequences in the present. And Michael Simon? He writes like an angel sitting in a blackened room full of spiders. Highly recommended. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub