Joe Hustle

“For years, Richard Lange has quietly climbed into the upper reaches of contemporary American noir. The leanly written Joe Hustle solidifies his stature. Joe Hustle—he’s been called that for so long he barely remembers his real name—is a middle-aged man about to embark on a desperate adventure with no good ending in sight."

"Joe Hustle may be the best novel yet from the always reliable Lange: a harrowing and occasionally hilarious character study in resilience. This is a home run."

"Lange describes a sunset with wind that is 'hot and pushy. Black clouds limned with moonglow roll in.' Later, 'a persistent orange glow keeps the stars at bay.' This eloquence stands in stark contrast to the story detailing the state of the counterculture in Southern California, a sad world of idlers, stoners, and parasites, pessimism and depression. Joe Hustle is in this world but not totally of it . . . The uproar in the last quarter of this hard-knocks, atmospheric tale offers hope, however tentative and half-hidden."

"The latest novel by a first-rate storyteller refusing to be pigeonholed . . . Lange is best known for cuttingly funny novels about killers, dealers, and con men . . . Here, though not without an assortment of bad deaths, he returns to the romantic mode of The Smack (2017), with a beautifully toned-down story about a pair of mismatched characters who win our sympathy not in spite of their doing and saying dumb things, but because they just can’t help it. It’s a real pleasure to read."

"Lange returns with a memorable gritty neo-noir . . . Lange is so adept at drawing his two main characters that readers won’t mind the relative lack of plot twists; the real suspense comes from seeing Joe Hustle skate by one more time.”

“What’s a classic noir without a troubled dame at its heart? Joe Hustle inhabits the shadow world of the Los Angeles fringe. When he meets Emily—beautiful, rich and the black sheep of her family—he falls hard. Joe runs into trouble with a drug dealer, and the young lovers flee on a desperate road trip. Lange, known for his hard-boiled mysteries, has penned a dangerous noir romance.”

“Joe Hustle is named for a screw-up, a guy who can turn an innocent favor into disaster, a reasonable request into an endless series of crises and a simple road trip into a ride from hell. But he’s charming, somehow and you forgive him and then things go really wrong.”

“Joe Hustle is downright brilliant—delightfully dark, deeply poetic, and a little bit heartbreaking. Richard Lange’s novel is a masterclass noir filled with the twisted souls and grisly pleasures of down-and-out Los Angeles. I goddamned loved it.”

“Lange is Shakespeare with a shank. His writing comes straight from noir’s obsidian heart, and it cuts to the bone. This novel is a dark love song, a long poem about being so damn low you can walk under a snake. Each line Lange writes is a firecracker, and Joe Hustle is a whole lotta dynamite.”

“Joe Hustle takes us into a rich, vividly sleazy underworld in the company of a protagonist that we grow to  care about deeply. Richard Lange is one of our very best practitioners of noir, and this book is yet another gem.”
 

“Lean and mean. Hard-boiled and hard-hitting. Gritty and noir-y and full of hangdog heart. That’s what this piping hot serving of Angeleno crime fiction is. Richard Lange’s Joe Hustle crawls under your skin and stays there till the last page.”
 

"Lean and gritty, thoughtful and nuanced, Joe Hustle delivers all the goods, right down to my favorite final page in years. It's a book with the muscle to keep you up all night and the heart to haunt you the next day. I'll read anything Richard Lange writes."

"As he spends his life cycling through odd jobs and making questionable life choices, veteran Joe Hustle’s main credo is ‘don’t die.’ A wonderfully bittersweet and darkly humorous tale, Richard Lange’s Joe Hustle is part love story and part recorded memoir of a man whose main goal is to just make it through life alive. Hard to put down and easy to get lost in."

Praise for Richard Lange's Rovers:

"Want a book that will scare the daylights out of you this weekend? Rovers, by Richard Lange. The best vampire novel I've read since Let the Right One In."

"Rovers is a lean, mean pulp masterpiece of American horror. I was blown away. Richard Lange is the real deal."

“A swift, delicious novel that’s firing on all cylinders . . . The book has a lot going on, with as many settings as characters, propelled by the jet fuel of resentments, assassinations-for-hire, mistakes, and love affairs . . . There are a few amazing fights too . . . Lange balances it all perfectly.”

"Outstanding supernatural noir . . . Evocative prose illuminates the neon-lit world of small-town 1970s America. Lange succeeds brilliantly at combining the vampire and noir traditions."

“Lange has done it again! Another tour de force! Another gripping page-turner! Shifting points-of-view, beautiful language, drama, action, fantasy, pathos—Rovers has it all! And it makes me feel greedy like a vampire (or a rover): I want and need another Richard Lange book right away! Well, I have to be patient and rational: I have his other books to reread and this one, too, which is an utter triumph and delight.”