MostlyFiction Book Reviews » Joe Lansdale We Love to Read! Wed, 14 May 2014 13:06:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3 DEVIL RED by Joe R. Lansdale /2011/devil-red-by-joe-r-lansdale/ /2011/devil-red-by-joe-r-lansdale/#comments Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:28:48 +0000 /?p=17542 Book Quote:

“The whole area wasn’t exactly what you’d call a great place to hang out. You did, there was a chance they’d find you the next morning in a ditch with your throat cut, your pockets turned inside out, and sperm in your ass, or perhaps a sharp instrument. It was the kind of place where the mice belonged to gangs.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage  (APR 24, 2011)

Fans of author Joe Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard series will not be disappointed in the latest novel, Devil Red. For those unfamiliar with the series (and it’s not necessary to read them in sequence in order to understand what’s going on), Hap and Leonard are two East Texas, tough working-class men who make a dubious living through various odds jobs. Hap, the narrator of the tales is white, and his sidekick Leonard is gay and black. Their friendship is firmly deep-rooted, and yet they often approach problems from different angles. Basically these are “buddy” books set against the backdrop of dark crime which is alleviated by outrageous humor. If Hap and Leonard ever tried their hand at show biz, they’d make great stand-up comics.

The last novel, Vanilla Ride found our two hapless heroes trying to do a “good deed” and getting mixed up in the business of the Dixie Mafia. This leads to hell unleashed by a legendary hit-woman known as Vanilla Ride. Although Hap and Leonard survive, it’s a deeply unsettling encounter for Hap.

Devil Red finds Hap and Leonard now somewhat steadily employed as investigators. Ex-cop Marvin Hanson has opened a PI agency, and naturally that means that Hap and Leonard will do the dirty work. The dirty work involves poking around in a cold murder case in a young man named Ted Christopher and his girlfriend, Mini were shot and their bodies dumped on a hiking trail. There are no suspects and very few clues. It seems to be a random killing, but then Hap and Leonard connect Mini to a horrific murder committed by the repulsive Evil Lynn–a delusional, now imprisoned psycho who thinks she is a vampire. Evil Lynn and her friends formed a cult known as The Children of the Night, but the group disbanded after her arrest for murder. Hoping for a connection to the murders of Ted Christopher and Mini, Hap and Leonard begin digging around into the so-called vampire murder Evil Lynn committed, and they uncover a trail of death….

There are new characters of course, along with a few familiar characters who resurface in this tale. To give names would spoil some of the fun for readers, so let’s just say there’s a putrid pile of scumbags floating to the top of Hap and Leonard’s world in the form of both old and new enemies. As usual, the tale is peppered with Hap and Leonard’s crude humor, so if you prefer your books tame and profanity-free, keep walking. But if you’re like me, you’ll find Hap and Leonard’s potty mouths refreshing and even inspiring. In other books in the series, the humor alleviated the violence, but in Devil Red, I’d say the violence wins. As usual, Lansdale has a mean eye when it comes to character description. Here’s Hap and Leonard visiting a newspaper office:

“There were reporters around, but fewer than I had imagined. There was also an advertising department. One of the women who worked there was overweight and frumpy with piss-blonde hair that looked to have been made by electricity and a sense of humor. She was wearing a too-short top that showed a lot of belly and a silver belly ring. She had on shorts that showed way too much ass and on the ass was a tattoo that looked like something an arthritic chicken had scratched in the dirt while dying.

My take is you can dress any way you want, but my amendment to that is that you have to have mirrors at your house, and you have to use them, and you must not lie to yourself about what they show.”

In Vanilla Ride, Hap struggles with his conscience in the aftermath of the violence he commits, and that theme returns with a vengeance in Devil Red. To Leonard, the choices he makes are simple, but Hap’s conscience, stoked by his growing nesting instinct with long-term girlfriend, Brett, keeps him awake at nights. One of the core themes of Lansdale’s East Texas Noir series is that conventional morality doesn’t apply to the situations Hap and Leonard face. There are systems (such as the Dixie Mafia, for example) that operate outside the law, and the law that is supposed in rein in the bad guys is so penetrated with corruption, the good guys are forced to take matters into their own hands. For Hap and Leonard, it comes down to a matter of the ends justify the means. Leonard has no problem with that while Hap still lingers on the morality of his actions.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 22 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf; First Edition edition (March 15, 2011)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Joe R. Lansdale
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Hap & Leonard Series:

Others:

Bibliography:

Hap Collins / Leonard Pine series:

]]> /2011/devil-red-by-joe-r-lansdale/feed/ 0 VANILLA RIDE by Joe R. Lansdale /2009/vanilla-ride-by-joe-r-lansdale/ /2009/vanilla-ride-by-joe-r-lansdale/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:10:48 +0000 /?p=2937 Book Quote:

“Where we were going was kind of a peckerwood suburb, which was pretty much a clutch of fall-defoliated trees, some evergreen pines, a listing mobile home, and a dog hunched to drop a load in what passed for a yard. The dog was medium-sized, dirty yellow, and looked like the last meal he had eaten, he was dropping. He was working so hard at dropping those turds, his eyes were damn near crossed, had the kind of concentration that made you consider he might be close to figuring out the problems with string theory. He didn’t look owned. Had the look of a freelance dog. Maybe there was something to be said for that.”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Guy Savage (JUL 23, 2009)

Special: Author Interview

If you like novels that are riveting, wildly profane and yet strangely profound, then welcome to Vanilla Ride, the latest novel in the Hap & Leonard series from author Joe Lansdale, and if you haven’t read one of his novels yet, then what are you waiting for?

As I’ve said before on this site, one of the very best things about reviewing for MostlyFiction.com is that I’ve been introduced to authors I never knew existed, and I hope I don’t hurt writer Joe Lansdale’s feelings when I say that up until 2008, I’d never heard his name. Now I can’t wait for his next book to hit the shelves.

Vanilla Ride is the latest novel in the Hap Collins and Leonard Pine series, and as always the tale is narrated by Hap and flavoured with his laid-back style. Hap and Leonard, two tough working class men, are a couple of strange characters who hook up occasionally, through circumstance, usually to engage in some “serious ass-whooping” in their East Texas hometown. Hap and Leonard are not normally people you’d imagine as firm friends. On the surface of things, they seem to be polar opposites. Hap is white and straight, and Leonard is gay and black. Of course, this leads to all sorts of assumptions about their relationship, but bottom line is that these two seemingly disparate men share an unbreakable bond of loyalty and friendship with each other. The fact that Leonard is gay, and fiercely proud of it, makes the friendship between these two that much more intriguing–especially when those around them sometimes don’t know how to take the off-the-wall remarks they bounce back and forth.

Vanilla Ride is at once very, very funny and very violent–an unusual combination that can’t be easy to achieve, and yet the author blends these two elements easily and seamlessly without ever seeming facetious or superficial. The violence is explosive and often unexpected, but it’s never glorified. While Leonard can kill with impunity, Hap makes the perfect narrator as he occasionally ponders the ramifications of his actions, and this laconic self-reflection is never over done. The humour runs almost non-stop through the tale, and it either occurs through Hap’s unique interpretation of events or through the dialogue between Hap and Leonard. If they ever decided to take to the stage, they’d have a career in stand-up comedy. I’d like to say that the humour overrides the violence, but the other books I’ve been reading lately impact that statement. Lansdale is known for his Texas Noir tales, so expect all the things that implies–a dark soulnessness, good guys and bad guys, but at times the line between “good” and “bad” blurs to the point of being practically non-existent. Vanilla Ride–like the other Hap & Leonard tales tackles racism, homophobia, with the occasional jab at organized religion. Hap & Leonard, naturally, are magnets for all sorts of –isms, and not accepting these characters probably says a great deal about the readers’ tolerance. Oh and if any of you prissy readers out there don’t care for bad language, then I suggest that you don’t bother with Hap and Leonard and move right along to something else. Hap and Leonard don’t just swear, they could give lessons in profanity, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The story begins when Leonard Pine shows up at Hap’s house late one night with ex-cop, Marvin Hanson. Hanson’s in trouble and he’s turned to Hap and Leonard to ask a favour. It seems that Hanson’s granddaughter, Gadget, is holed up in a trailer in the middle of nowhere with her drug dealing boyfriend. Hanson has the idea that Gadget wants out, and he tried and failed to extract her. Now he wants Hap and Leonard to use their muscle to get his granddaughter back:

“I studied on this a moment, looked at Leonard. He gave me a small nod. I said, We’ll do it, but if she doesn’t want to come home, I don’t know what to tell you. That’s the case, we bring her back, she’ll just run off again.’?

“I understand that,” Marvin said. “But I saw something in her eyes before she got pulled away. She wanted to come home. I’m not sure she knows it outright, but I could tell.”

“I don’t trust things you see in people’s eyes,” I said. “You might be seeing your own reflection.”

This simple favour for an old friend soon lands Hap and Leonard into some very serious business, and they find themselves stuck in the middle of a mess involving stolen money, a protected witness and an FBI sting. In shaking up some gormless drug dealers, Hap and Leonard run foul of the Dixie Mafia, and the doors to hell open wide with a professional hit woman known as Vanilla Ride on their trail.

Vanilla Ride is a wonderful read and is certain to please fans of the series, but if you haven’t read the others yet, don’t despair, you can start here and back up later. Hap and Leonard’s long-term friendship often resonates with the familiarity of an old married couple. They survive in a world in which conventional morality fails, police who “uphold” the law are on the take, and Hap and Leonard–a couple of latter-day cowboys must once again solve their problems by operating outside of legal systems.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 29 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf (June 30, 2009)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Joe R. Lansdale
EXTRAS: Excerpt MostlyFiction interview with Joe R. Lansdale
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Hap & Leonard Series:

 

Others:

Similar:

Bibliography:

Hap Collins / Leonard Pine series:

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