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Lucky Guy
Paperback
Publisher Price: $21.99
ISBN13: 9781967223039
Publisher: Vague Apparatus Press
Published: Jan 23 2026
Pages: 314
Weight: 0.80
Height: 0.70 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
A deep and compelling dive into a question seldom answered: How lucky am I? Jerry Spinelli, Newbery Medalist
What if you believed fate was on your side-even when the stakes are life and death?
2026 Page Turner Book Awards Finalist in Fiction
A compelling tale of passion, poker, and unrealized dreams, a dizzying roulette wheel of chaos and happenstance. Irwin writes tight prose with sharp edges, and his newest novel is a stark reminder that choices almost always have consequences. Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire
Matt Martinez is not having a good day. He's nearly burned through his poker stake, his girlfriend is threatening to leave him over his gambling, his father is dying in hospice, and he can't seem to get along with his sister.
To top it off, he accidentally murders two people, and it isn't even lunch time yet.
Concisely written and propulsive... There's a lot of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley in Matt, though Matt imagines himself a moral creature until, like Ripley, he blows right past all moral boundaries. Along the way, we get consistently fun dialogue. It's part of the book's strength that by the end, you understand the title is both ironic and fitting. Michael Backus, author of The Vanishing Point and The Heart is Meat: An 80s Memoir
From a writer the Los Angeles Times called witty and ingenious, Lucky Guy is a gripping psychological thriller about a would-be professional poker player whose faith in his own luck is as unshakable as it is seemingly unfounded.
As Matt's world teeters on the edge of disaster, his belief in his own invincibility is put to the ultimate test. Haunted by secrets and feeling harassed on all sides, he must outwit the police, his own conscience, and a cunning rival obsessed with pushing Matt to the edge.
Matt is a complex antihero whose fanatic belief in his own luck leads him into increasingly perilous situations. The skill with which Jim Irwin crafts this multi-layered character is one of the book's great pleasures, and the fast-paced narrative alternates between dark suspense and dark comedy. Lori Robbins, Amazon bestselling author of the On Pointe and Master Class mystery series
Darkly comic and relentlessly suspenseful, Lucky Guy is a sharp exploration of superstitions, fixations, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive. Will Matt's luck finally run out? Or is he destined to beat the odds one last time?
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