#331 ~ Heads You Lose

Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward

Published by: Putnam

Published on: April 2011

Page Count: 320

Genre: Fiction

My Reading Format: ARC sent to me by the publisher for consideration

Available Formats: Hardcover, eBook, audiobook

My Review
Twitter is an amazing thing. People were laughing their tweets off over Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward. I knew I didn’t want to wait to read it myself. Within a week, the ARC arrived in my mail box and I started reading it almost immediately.

Two things are happening in this novel: the mystery being written in alternating chapters by two different authors and the creative and personal relationship between the authors themselves. Lisa Lutz, the author of the Spellman mysteries, conceived of this project and invited David Hayward, a poet and, coincidentally, her ex-boyfriend, to write alternate chapters. As the mystery itself builds, the authors exchange letters to each other at the beginning and end of each chapter.

As Heads You Lose begins, the story between the authors takes a backseat to the story itself. Lacey and Paul Hansen are adult siblings living together in the secluded home their parents left to them when they died in a freak accident. They find a headless body on their property. The way in which they deal with the body is complicated by the fact that they grow and sell marijuana. They can’t have the police coming for the body for fear of the trouble they’d find themselves in. There came a point, however, when the authors’ humorously dysfunctional relationship takes over. Through the peak into their thought processes and interactions, things happening in the story take on different significance.

It was the combination of these two elements that made this book hard to put down. It was also the author’s interactions and reactions that made me laugh out loud more times than I could keep track. In fact, when the passive aggressive kicks into high gear, I nearly dropped my copy into the bathtub. There was an entire chapter David wrote that kept me giggling both in his response to Lisa and in anticipation of her response I knew would be coming.

Lately these days readers and movie goers put themselves onto teams when there are two sides to be taken. If teams were set up for Heads You Lose, I’d firmly be on Team David. It’s not that I didn’t like Lisa or enjoy her writing, but for me David was the sympathetic author/character. Lisa definitely wanted the fact that she was in charge to be repeated and obeyed. I appreciated David’s patience with her as well as his humor when he finally unleashed himself.

While I enjoyed the quirky little mystery of the headless body, this novel wouldn’t have been half as fun without the banter between the authors. They provided wonderful details about the writing process as well as added depth to Lacey and Paul’s characters. So many of the characters and events that took place in the novel were Lisa and David’s pawns. Knowing that was like being invited in for a fly’s eye view of the book. Heads You Lose is a great ride that can be enjoyed by anyone. If you like a little mystery and love to laugh, pick up Heads You Lose. I’ll be curious to know which team you end up choosing.