Lucky Loser

A first-rate financial thriller … one of those rare Trump books that deserve, even demand, to be read … A multi-generational saga * New York Times *Meticulously documented … Buettner and Craig have such a trove of documents, they are able to prove, in incontrovertible detail, the reality under the hype that is Donald Trump … This is a page turner, with spectacular anecdotes * Washington Post *Shows that the popular caricature of Trump as a canny real estate titan - one painstakingly crafted by him, and by television producers - is more fact than fiction. … With scalpel-like precision, [Buettner and Craig] paint a detailed portrait of just how much Trump was given to set him up for success in business, and the hundreds of millions of his father’s money he squandered on bad deals … Damning * Sunday Times *A page-turner … Buettner and Craig delve more deeply into this story than anyone I’ve encountered * Guardian *Groundbreaking reporting … comprehensive, persuasive, and packed with damning anecdotes * The New Yorker *Strikes at the heart of the Trump myth * Financial Times *I can’t emphasise this enough: Lucky Loser is a gripping, page-turning read, devastating in its meticulousness and thrilling in its narrative. If the devil is in the detail, this book is as close to Satan’s origin story as we’re ever going to get – Emma Brockes * Guardian *Buettner and Craig are relentless in picking apart every Trump misstatement … the pattern becomes clear … Lucky Loser shows us that Trump’s self-invention was largely based on lies * Literary Review *An expansive account of the New York Times reporters’ award-winning investigation into Trump’s finances * Financial Times, Books of the Year *

Russ Buettner is an investigative reporter at the New York Times. Since 2016, his reporting has focused on the personal finances of Donald J. Trump, including in-depth articles with Susanne Craig and other Times reporters that revealed the fortune Trump inherited from his father and the record of business failures hidden in twenty years of Trump’s tax returns. Those articles were awarded a Pulitzer Prize and two George Polk awards. Buettner, who joined the Times in 2006, was also a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for articles with Danny Hakim highlighting abuse and neglect in New York’s care of developmentally disabled people. He previously worked on investigations teams at the Daily News in New York and New York Newsday.

Susanne Craig is an investigative reporter at the New York Times. Since 2016, her reporting has focused on the personal finances of Donald J. Trump, including in-depth articles that revealed the fortune Trump inherited from his father and the record of business failures hidden in twenty years of Trump’s tax returns. Those articles were awarded a Pulitzer Prize and two George Polk awards. Craig previously covered Wall Street and served as Albany bureau chief for the Times. Prior to joining the Times in 2010, Craig was a reporter at The Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. She is a member of the Order of Canada and serves as an on-air analyst for MSNBC.