Underdog
(Book)

Ross Macdonald called Michael Z. Lewin a "writer with style and sensibility and wit...He has a fine poetic sense of detail which lights up every page." In this remarkable novel Lewin breaks new ground in the realm of crime with the character of Jan Moro. Moro is different from most crime fiction protagonists. He's smaller. He smells worse. He eats behind restaurants. Jan Moro is homeless - by choice, by circumstance, and by the madness that gnaws at the edge of all our lives. Running from his past, Jan is determined to strike it rich; he becomes obsessed with meeting one of Indianapolis' most notorious entrepreneurs, Billy Cigar. Cigar made his mark by murdering people in South America and now lives in the dusty emerald city of Indianapolis. But before Jan can weasel his way into Cigar's good graces, the cops intervene, and Jan talks his way into becoming a paid informant. Suddenly Jan is working both sides of the fence, and his own side as well. From an embittered, lovelorn undercover officer to a beautiful woman who is being used to set Cigar up, Moro navigates a sea of murderous sharks and hapless bait - baffling, annoying, and astonishing all who come face to face with him. If he manages to get out of the water he now he will either be rich...or dead. A comic Ironweed, a Maltese Falcon for the urban America of the 1990s, Underdog is a truly amazing novel. And Jan Moro is surely one of the most.

unforgettable characters ever to appear in mystery fiction.