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Russell Atwood

Autor(a) de Losers Live Longer

5 Works 217 Membros 6 Críticas

About the Author

Includes the name: Russell Atwood

Séries

Obras por Russell Atwood

Losers Live Longer (2009) 140 exemplares
East of A (1996) 72 exemplares
East Side Stories (2003) 1 exemplar
Apartment Five Is Alive (2020) 1 exemplar

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Nome canónico
Russell Atwood
Outros nomes
Russ Atwood
Data de nascimento
1964
Sexo
male
Nacionalidade
USA

Membros

Críticas

“Apartment Five Is Alive” is a group of six related chapters (plus an interlude) involving tenants of a specific apartment in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Chapter One traces its beginnings as a (big) room in a 1920s house, and the other five occur after the house has been converted to apartments, with people inhabiting the place in the 1950s, 1970s to 1990s, and early 2000s, some for very short periods and some much longer. One tenant, a window dresser by profession, starts the tradition of hosting a Halloween party each year, which involves brilliant hand-made decorations and throngs of costumed party-goers. What he doesn’t know is that the apartment is, in some sense, sentient - and when his parties stop, It (the apartment) is desperate to recreate those days…. The premise of this novel is quite clever; unfortunately, the execution is not. I didn’t much care for any of the characters, and the apartment itself seemed to be sometimes able to cause all sorts of mayhem and at other times not so much. In addition, there’s a massive amount of grammatical problems here; I know that can be intended in some books, but here it is much too inconsistent to be deliberate. Half-rendered sentences here, complete run-on sentences there, the occasional bit where it seems the author was sketching out an image and then repeats it more ornately a paragraph later - it’s just a mess. I read it all because of the intriguing premise (and because it’s short), but it really wasn’t worth my time.… (mais)
 
Assinalado
thefirstalicat | Mar 20, 2021 |
“East Village Noir” is a short story that serves as an introduction to the great New York City detective Payton Sherwood. Russell Atwood has used Sherwood in two full-length novels, “East of A” and “Losers Live Longer.” This version of East Village Noir contains samples from both of those novels. It also contains the short (very short) story “Holes,” which is about what a man finds when he reaches his hand into various holes, a rather unusual story.

Our story takes place in 1997’s New York City. Our hero, PI Sherwood is tasked by parents from rural New Hampshire with finding their fifteen-year-old daughter, Melissa, who ran off to New York City. It is a smooth-reading story that has Sherwood checking out a few haunts in the lower east side.
The story is at its best with some of its descriptions of the various neighborhoods such as the description of Gramercy Park as “the last holdout to a forgotten age of gentility in Manhattan, the elegant era of Edith Wharton.” St. Marks Place is “lined with a “string of T-shirt stands, CD stores, and bars” attracting college students and tourists from all over the world, “who in turn attracted the homeless and the criminal to peddle sob stories or drugs.”

The descriptions of the various characters Sherwood meets are also quite interesting. Ms. Janssen is described as wearing “a dark blouse and a white satin skirt that clung to her like a layer of thick cream.” There are a pack of kids on skateboards, a man in a black wig and high heels, two severe-looking women with close-cropped black hair, and a young man with pale, almost translucent flesh, a missing front tooth, and “a brass ring pierced through his nose like a bull.” And then there’s the guy described as “fireplug stocky with a hard Buddha belly,” a bald head, and a black “Kentucky-colonel beard sprouting from his chin.”

With these descriptions of people and places, Atwood sets his detective sharply into the lower east side. Suprisingly, the story is not that dark and foreboding, perhaps because Sherwood doesn’t take himself too seriously. It’s a good short and well worth reading as an introduction to Atwood’s longer novels.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
DaveWilde | Sep 22, 2017 |
"Losers Live Longer" is one of two full-length novels Atwood has written about NYC private eye Payton Sherwood. This is not a Mike Hammer type private eye or even a Phillip Marlowe type. With his wisecracking humor and his all too mortal fighting ability, Sherwood is more like a modernized version of Ed Noon if he could be compared to anyone. In this book, Sherwood manages to stumble out of his apartment/office building without shoes or socks, only to see his buddy/client Owl has been hit by a car. Not one to be too suspicious, Sherwood searches the body as the sirens approach.

Thinking someone (like a retro skateboarder) might have observed him, Sherwood takes off over trash and decay and things sticky and disgusting on the New York sidewalks in his bare feet. It is quite amusing as he searches in vain for a pair of shoes to don, finally finding a pair in the trash. From there, Sherwood literally stumbles onto one clue after another to wrap up a mystery. On the way, he is accosted by Russian mobsters, struck on the head with a briefcase, dodging bullets about the East River, and variously beat up and made a complete fool of.

The plot meanders quite a bit and, by the end, the plot is a little too disjointed to be compelling. It may just be that the book is way too long for what it tries to do.

There are a lot of positive things about Atwood's writing, including his inane, humorous descriptions of people and places. This is a detective who makes fun of himself and doesn't take himself too seriously. Indeed, Sherwood is about as down on his luck as one could possibly be, having only four paying clients in the past year and having already sold most of his possessions on Ebay. Sherwood thinks that someone out there was a billable client and he is going to stumble on that person. But, Sherwood is so sure no one will drop by that he is lounging around barefoot, drinking coffee, and when the buzzer rings, he figures it was just some drunk leaning against the doorframe and getting his bearings. When his buddy the older detective stops by (Owl), Sherwood describes him as "ancient and not too steady on his pins." He was a "geezer" who "could've used a registered nurse." And when he sees a body in the street, Sherwood thinks of the "white- haired scalp ruptured" and "a skull shard sticking out." Not to mention the emission of brain matter. As he walks down a corridor, he thinks of it as an "anonymous corridor" "about as lively as a sun-shrunken condom." When Sherwood gets battered, he says he was a "perfect pinball" especially as his head connects with the dresser's edge. When Sherwood sees a gorgeous woman, he thinks there is something irrestible about her, "something that made you think of Pavlov and dogs and bells, of maybe moths and flames." But not everyone in Sherwood's world is amazing. Some are dumpy with "copper-orange hair and harlequin glasses."

… (mais)
 
Assinalado
DaveWilde | 2 outras críticas | Sep 22, 2017 |
Russell Atwood's "Losers Live Longer" is volume 59 from the excellent Hard Case Crime and is the second novel to feature loser private eye, Payton Sherwood; the first being "East of A" (1999). The story opens with the down on his luck Payton getting an out-of-the-blue telephone call from legendary, veteran detective George "Owl" Rowell asking for Payton's help on a case. On the way to Payton's office to brief him, Owl is killed in an apparent car accident. Payton's suspicions are aroused and he begins to look into what Owl had been up to and soon finds himself sucked into a complex web of intrigue that includes a shamed Wall Street financier and the millions he's taken-off with; a beautiful heroin addict; a stressed-out film director; a Ukrainian child porn ring and a devious blackmailing scheme. Add in Payton's tough but embittered ex-boss; a smart ass street skater; a host of beautiful femme fatales and a mounting cast of dead bodies and you have a sure fire recipe for a compelling and complicated mystery. "Losers Live Longer" is a great and highly intriguing read but the cast of characters and the multi-layered plot lines can be challenging at times – but not so difficult or dense as to slow down the page-turning momentum of the story. The book has a number of clever twists and just when you feel you have a handle on it a new revelation moves it in a different direction. Payton Sherwood is an excellent character, his down on his luck demeanour and rough-and-ready language camouflaging a quick mind and a well-developed, though sometimes well-hidden, morality. His sense of humour and quick turn of phrase is hard-boiled, funny and witty, but not without a touch of the grimly scatological. Atwood writes in a fast and contemporary style, being particularly good at conjuring up the New York City locations where the story is set – you can almost taste the city as the action moves rapidly from locale to locale. Overall "Losers Live Longer" is a great detective mystery, complex and intriguing, full of great twists and turns and featuring a great cast of characters, not least being the "hero" of the piece, Payton Sherwood. The horizontal cover for the book is also an interesting touch.… (mais)
 
Assinalado
calum-iain | 2 outras críticas | May 17, 2014 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
5
Membros
217
Popularidade
#102,846
Avaliação
½ 3.3
Críticas
6
ISBN
13
Línguas
1

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