Losers Live Longer

by Russell Atwood

Book Overview

The death of legendary private eye George Rowell looked like an accidentbut searching for the truth behind it will put down-and-out East Village detective Payton Sherwood on the corpse-littered trail of a runaway investment scam artist, a drug-addicted reality TV starand the bewitching beauty whose appearance set it all in motion...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 084396121X
• ISBN13: 9780843961218
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Hard Crime Case
• Length: 249 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.1" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Fast, Smart, Intense

This might be a crime novel, but protagonist Payton Sherwood is the most likable guy you're apt to meet, the kind you wish was your friend. Russell Atwood's dialogue is clever and entertaining, and his rich cast of colorfully drawn characters holds your interest. I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good mystery, and especially to anyone who's ever spent an afternoon wandering around the East Village, a place Atwood knows like the back of his hand and brilliantly recreates.

Can a loser be a winner?

Having finished reading several of Donald Westlake's comic crime series featuring John Dortmunder, the bad luck loser among thieves, was I ready for a private eye loser? Well, ready or not, Atwood's Payton Sherwood was a winner! Sherwood is an underemployed private eye who in the investigation of the death of an elderly famous P.I. endures beatings, verbal abuse, attempts on his life, and unceasing doubts about his abilities. But Sherwood, like Dortmunder, is persistent. At one near-fatal point in his life, Sherwood says "I hung on. It's what I do." Sorta like you and me (well, me, anyway!) rather than the James Bond super-hero. Atwood's writing is crisp and appropriate for the characters and locales he portrays, including his carefully chosen incomplete sentences. His frequent similies are creative, such as: "I was trying to gather my wits, but it was like reconstructing a blown-apart dandelion." That is writing well worth reading. And the "loser" Sherwood -- what about him... well, he comes out on top at the end. My hope is that Russell Atwood is busy writing his third Sherwood novel now!

Modern day hardboiled crime with nonstop action.

Payton Sherwood, narrator and protagonist of Losers Live Longer, is a modern day PI who in the course of an action packed 24 hours solves a number of diverse though ultimately interrelated crimes. The setting for this recent entry in the Hard Case Crime series is lower Manhattan and the crimes Payton finds himself confronted with are "ripped from the headlines". Author Russell Atwood skillfully succeeds in capturing reader interest with memorable characters, plenty of clever dialogue and a complex yet fast paced plot. Though written with obvious affection for the hardboiled classics of yesteryear, Losers Live Longer is very much a crime novel for the 21st century. A welcome addition to the Hard Case Crime series.

Classic-style private eye novel

A year or so, I watched a set of B mysteries featuring detective Michael Shayne. One of the special features was a mini-documentary on Robert McGinnis, one of the great pulp mystery artists. In this era where book covers are typically dull, McGinnis and his ilk stand out even more. Happily, Hard Case Crime realizes this, bringing back this classic style. McGinnis himself does the cover for Russell Atwood's Losers Live Longer. Losers Live Longer. It's the title of the novel, but is it really the case? Private eye George Rowell is a real winner, a legend in the profession who's reached old age. While many fictional detectives seem to perish right after retirement, he's made it to his golden years. Unfortunately, he came out of his retirement and soon is dead, the victim of a seeming accident. Narrator Payton Sherwood may or may not live a long life, but he is clearly a loser, at least career-wise. A down-and-out private eye who can number his recent cases on one hand, Sherwood gets an opportunity from Rowell involving flushing out a possible tail, but Rowell's death leaves Sherwood in the dark. Still, he decides to do what he can to assist in the case. This is a nice, back-to-the-basics private eye story with a sardonic main character in the Philip Marlowe mold. By the end of the book, he will deal with assorted femme fatales and vicious crooks, often getting blows to the head for his troubles. If you're a fan of the classic hard-boiled mystery, this is one to pick up and enjoy.

Fantastic

"I'm really the Green Lantern'.... How many detective novels can use the line "I'm really the Green Lantern" and get away with it? Not too many if they are not comic book based characters or plots. In "Losers Live Longer", Rusell Atwood creates a novel that is amazing in its' attraction and style. WIth the death of private eye George Rowell (Orwell?), Payton Sherwood is on the trail of a serial killer with as many as 8 kills to his name by the end of the book. His style is a mix between Max Allan Collins, Erle Stanley Gardner and Frederick Faust, yet its' stylistic leanings capture a genre unlike many other attempts to do so. This is not just noir. This is not just mystery. It is more, yet less of a mix than a leaner, cleaner, more realistic prose style. I could not put the book down. Speed read, or slow read, it was the same. Magnificent. Look for "Losers Live Longer" at your local book dealer. Buy it for the story, or for the McGinnis cover which just happens to resemble Cher. Either way you win.