Book Description
Since a mysterious childhood illness, Harry Wilkes has experienced horrific visions. Gruesome scenes emerge to replay themselves before his eyes. Triggered by simple sounds, these visions occur anywhere a tragic event has happened. Now in college, Harry feels haunted and turns to alcohol to dull his visionary senses. One night, he sees a fellow drunk easily best three muggers. In this man, Harry finds not only a friend that will help him kick the booze, but also a sensei who will teach him to master his unusual gift. Soon Harry’s childhood crush, Kayla, comes and asks for help solving her father’s murder. Unsure of how it will affect him, Harry finds the strength to confront the dark secrets of the past, only to unveil the horrors of the present. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Works on every level
I've followed Lansdale for twenty years-read his "Twilight Zone Magazine" short stories like a kid tearing into a Halloween bag of candy. So my expectations are high. Often-with other writers-that leads to disappointment. Not with Mr. Lansdale and especially Lost Echoes. The heroes aren't clean-cut, but they aren't nasties you're ashamed to like. There's a nice balance. Lansdale's dialog is wicked cool (but I agree with one of the other reviewers that it doesn't always click. I chock that up to not every attempt at being fresh is going to also be good. I'd rather have some duds than a book full of dull writing, which Lansdale has never put out). This one keeps you turning pages and the surprises are shocking.

Slow-moving
Joe Lansdale's books are always more about character vignettes than plot, and this book is no different. That said, it does takes a little longer before the plot kicks in -- 2/3 of the way through.A little too long, in my estimation.Another thing I noticed that bothered me a bit is that all the characters seemed to talk the same way, with the same manner of speaking. Maybe it's always that way with his books, but it stood out more for me this time.

That said, I still liked this book -- I *like* character vignettes.

Darkness on the Edge of Sound
Attempting a crime thriller with a supernatural twist is risky literary business, but prolific author Joe Lansdale has the chops to pull it off - barely.This is the story of Harry Wilkes, who thanks to a severe childhood ear infection is given the unwanted gift of hindsight triggered by sounds.Put Harry in the vicinity of a violent death and, if triggered by the right sound, an instant replay of whatever gruesome past event took place.Needless to say, neither a pleasant nor desirable talent, which sentences poor Harry to a life of carefully plotted places and activities in an attempt to prevent the next horror show.But after living a life trying to avoid his "sixth sense", Harry must eventually make the choice of confronting his nightmares in order to help Kayla, former crush of his east-Texas childhood and current rookie cop on the local police force - and still a "hottie".While somewhat reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan's "Sixth Sense", or more recently, or Tom Piccarilli's bizarre "Headstone City", Lansdale's twist on a second sight is fresh and unique.

"Echoes" starts fast and furious, getting the reader riveted early, but about midway through slows and starts gets a bit muddy.The dialogue is uneven - snappy and darkly humorous at times, dull and uninspired at others.But for me, much of the slowdown can be attributed to Tad Peters, a middle-aged drunk who happens to be a Bruce Lee-class martial artist, independently wealthy, wholly unbelievable, and totally annoying.But we're to believe that the sodden Tad has the mojo to turn Harry's life around, get them both off the sauce, save fair Kayla, and clear her father's good name.But thankfully, just before Tad manages to sink this notable effort, Lansdale recovers and salvages the story with a climax worthy of the crackerjack beginning.All things considered, an off-the-beaten-track-kind of a book that while not without flaws is a worthy read.

Didn't live up to the description
This was an OK book, but it did not live up to the description given by Amazon or anyone else.It was old fashioned and slow, the characters were not really engaging enough and the plot never really picked up steam.This is the type of book that always makes me think I can write a better mystery, unfortunately.

Excellent, but not quite up to his usual standards
I couldn't grab this book quick enough when I saw it. Lansdale is an amazing writer, and as usual, this book was a joy to read.

As great as it was, it just wasn't quite as good as all of his previous efforts. It felt almost as if he had a deadline he had to meet and rushed through the story. Remember the differences between the short story "Mad Dog Summer" and the novel it eventually became, "The Bottoms?" It's almost a case of that. It feels like there are a lot of details missing from the book, and that we never truly get to meet all of the characters the way we usually do with Lansdale's works.

Now make no mistake - this is an excellent book. I would happily settle down with Lansdale's grocery list if he made it available - he is just that great of a writer. He's got a real way with words, and he isn't afraid to approach the darker territories. His dialogue is stunning - I think anyone who writes fiction could take a page or two from his books.

I did love this book, I would just have liked to see more detail and a more fleshed-out plot. ... Read more

Book Description
Dead in the West is the story of Mud Creek, Texas, a town overshadowed by a terrible evil. An Indian medicine man, unjustly lynched by the people of Mud Creek, has put a curse on the town. As the sun sets, he will have his revenge. For when darkness falls, the dead will walk in Mud Creek and they will be hungry for human flesh. The only one that can save the town is Reverend Jebediah Mercer, a gun toting preacher man who came to Mud Creek to escape his past. He has lost his faith in the Lord and his only solace is the whisky bottle. Will he renew his faith in himself and God to defeat this evil or will the town be destroyed? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Thumbs up.
First chapter starts off a slow, contemplated putting the book down half way through it. Second chapter picks up considerably. The book continues this momentium throughout. Overall a fun read.

Cowboys and Indians, Dead Style.
Dead in the West is a yarn about Reverend Jebediah Mercer, a preacher who has lost his faith and has come to Mud Creek, an east Texas town that has a curse on it.Not so long ago the townsfolk unjustly lynched an Indian Medicine man and butchered his mixed race wife.Before he died, the Medicine man cursed the town and now the dead have come back to life to extract revenge on Mud Creek's citizens, whether they were involved with the lynching or not.

Overall, the story is a very fast read and fairly entertaining.Good mixed genre stuff; it is more than just a step above "Dead West", a graphic novel that is quite similar to this work.In that story, we have the last surviving member of a tribe extracting revenge on the town of Lazarus for wiping out his tribe.A mysterious stranger comes to town and ends up getting mixed up in things, just like Reverend Jeb in this book.

One of the key differences is that this story is much more fleshed out and we are given some detailed characters, including the Reverend, a young stable boy he befriends, the town doctor, and his beautiful daughter.Reverend Jeb is a tortured soul who is trying to find his faith again and felt that he was called to this backwoods town by God for some reason and of course, since he is a crack shot and is willing to use his gun, like a sword, to smite the devil, we already know we are going to get some exciting action as Jeb faces off against the living dead as well as the demon possessed Indian that wants revenge on Mud Creek.

Joe Lansdale has a comfortable and tight writing style that makes the story fly by with ease.I read it in a couple of hours and enjoyed most of it.Certainly, there are some classic old west stereotypes with the characters, but that allows you to slip into the story comfortably.Despite the graphic novel mentioned above that is very similar, this work has to stand out as quite creative and unique.A fun time for anyone who enjoys undead fiction and/or old west tales.

A Western Zombie tale
I read World War Z recently and found it to be so enjoyable it put me in the mood for more apocalyptic zombie fiction. I had also recently read Joe Lansdale's "The Bottoms" and found it to be a moving, highly literate coming of age story. So I thought, "why not combine the two experiences and read a Lansdale zombie story?" So I ordered this book from Amazon based upon the other reviews and read it last night.

Hmmmm. This wasn't a literate novel like The Bottoms. In fact, it isn't even a novel. At 147 pages, with sparse text on each page, I am not even sure it stretches to novella. There is also little character development; the figures in the book are just stereotyped character sketches. There's the hard-drinking gun-toting preacher who doubts in God, the redneck town bully, the native indian curse, the elderly, good-willed town doctor, his beautiful daughter, the bullied teenager in need of a father figure, and the sheriff tormented by his failing to uphold justice through a lapse in character. The story is a pulp dime-store book and the cover art depicts it well. Now despite what may seem like a list of shortcomings, as long as you aware of what you are buying, I can see how this would be a pretty enjoyable read especially for the younger set. It has the feel and lfavor of a book directed at pre-teens or teenagers. Yes, the characters and story are simple, but if you are hankering for a fast-paced, quick read about zombies battling it out with dead-eyed gunslingers on a mission from God, then this one will hit the spot. The book doesn't pretend to be anything but what it is, an enjoyable pulp combining the zombie and Western genres for a fun little novella. It's kind of pricy for what you get, but if you can pick it up used and like these genres, you'll enjoy this romp.

I prefer denser stories with more development. If you do as well, then let me heartily recommend World War Z if you want a zombie book, or if you want literature let me recommend The Bottoms, a book hauntingly reminiscent of an updated To Kill a Mockingbird. If you like pulps though, I thought this was a reasonably decent one.

Zombie in the Old West
Lansdale seemlessly blends motifs of the horror and western genre in this very short, fast-paced book.

However, I felt that Lansdale is trying to shock a little too hard in some of his passages (wait till you find out what kind of emotional baggage the preacher is carrying around), but also makes it seem a rather casual aspect of the plot.

The "zombies" have an interesting fusion of mythology attached to them and certain parts of the story seem to prefigure "From Dusk Till Dawn".

A great book and an excellent example of how the horror western can succeed when written like this.

The best of the best
For some strange reason Joe Lansdale often carried the tag of horror writer for many years which is peculiar since out of the 20 or so books of his, only "The Drive-In" and "Dead in the West" are horror novels.Many of his novels are either westerns, hard-boiled mysteries or strange combinations of both.Dead in the West is another unique crossover as only Lansdale can do, a short novel that seamlessly combines the western and horror genres to mold a "zombie western".Let it be said that Dead in the West is one of the best and most unique contributions ever to the horror genre.

Reverend Jeb Mercer is a man of god who has lost much of his faith due to the many unfortunate circumstances that have shaped his life.Every once in a while Jeb still communicates with the lord and this time He has sent Jeb to the East Texas town of Mud Creek on a mission, a mission about what Jeb is uncertain but he boards his mule, packs his guns and heads over to the sleepy desert town.Jeb will soon find out that the town has been cursed by an Indian shaman and that is why everyone in Mud Creek is turning into slow shuffling zombies.Can the Reverend, a man of god who has lost his faith, save the town from the dark pits of hell that await?

The ideas are great and truly original but it is Lansdale's writing that make this novel so exceptional.He has a way with words and with humour that just jump at you and make you stare at the page in disbelief.The dialogue is some of the funniest ever and all the words seem to flow seamlessly on the pages.This is one of those novels that is very hard to put down unfinished.On the surface, the plot seems like one of a pulpy dime novel but it has such a tight structure and sense of atmosphere that it becomes so much more.This book has more treasures in 120 pages than most books of 400 pages could ever think of having.

Most of the novel would be classified as a western until that is the invasion of zombies in the last 30 pages or so that turn it into a bloody, gory and extremely graphic zombie gut-muncher.This is one of those gems that should never go out of print and should obtain classic status but because of how unconventional it is will forever remain an obscure cult anomaly. If you are a fan of Joe or horror in general what are you waiting for?Hunt this book down, then settle into your favourite chair with a bowl of chili on the side and let Joe take you on for the ride of your life.
... Read more

Amazon.com
Joe Lansdale, author of several horror novels, Westerns, andsome outrageous thrillers, is something of a cult writer. The Bottoms,which may be the breakout book that moves Lansdale beyond the genre category, isa resonant and moving novel. Though there is a mystery at its core, it is atheart a coming-of-age story, with a more literary bent than Lansdale usuallydemonstrates.

Harry, an elderly man, tells the story of a series of events that occurred inhis 11th year, when the mutilated, murdered bodies of Negro prostitutes beganturning up in the county where his father was the local constable. Harry andTom, his younger sister, find the first one. Only their father, Jacob Crane,seems to care about finding justice for the victims, who are dismissed out ofhand as unimportant by the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which warns Jacoboff any further investigations. Harry and Tom think they know who'sresponsible: the Goat Man, a creature who's said to lurk beneath the swingingbridge that crosses the Sabine River, where the first body was found.In fact,the Goat Man has something to do with the murders, and the secret of who he isand what he really did is the key to the unsolved slayings. But that takessecond place to the artfully explicated character of Jacob and Harry's changingrelationship with him in the course of the loss of his boyish innocence. Thisis a masterfully told story and a very good read. --Jane AdamsBook Description
Joe Lansdale, author of several horror novels, Westerns, andsome outrageous thrillers, is something of a cult writer. The Bottoms,which may be the breakout book that moves Lansdale beyond the genre category, isa resonant and moving novel. Though there is a mystery at its core, it is atheart a coming-of-age story, with a more literary bent than Lansdale usuallydemonstrates.Harry, an elderly man, tells the story of a series of events that occurred inhis 11th year, when the mutilated, murdered bodies of Negro prostitutes beganturning up in the county where his father was the local constable. Harry andTom, his younger sister, find the first one. Only their father, Jacob Crane,seems to care about finding justice for the victims, who are dismissed out ofhand as unimportant by the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which warns Jacoboff any further investigations. Harry and Tom think they know who'sresponsible: the Goat Man, a creature who's said to lurk beneath the swingingbridge that crosses the Sabine River, where the first body was found.In fact,the Goat Man has something to do with the murders, and the secret of who he isand what he really did is the key to the unsolved slayings. But that takessecond place to the artfully explicated character of Jacob and Harry's changingrelationship with him in the course of the loss of his boyish innocence. Thisis a masterfully told story and a very good read. --Jane AdamsDownload Description
The talented voice of East Texas delivers a riveting, poignant, and suspenseful tale of a Depression-era serial murder seen through the eyes of a young boy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (80)

Great book!
This was a great book! It took a little while to get into the East Texas slang and language but after I did, it was a great story. The ending was a complete surprise, too - which is nice in a mystery.

A FANTASTIC READ!
I really enjoyed this book.The plot was great.The writing was a bit choppy (4 stars because I think this book, if not the author, could use a good editor), but maybe my version was different.I read it on an eBook.

Still, as another reviewer said, the descriptions made it like I was THERE.It helps that I'm from East Texas, and I'm familiar with the Sabine River and surrounding.

I FELT for the characters in this book, and it was MUCH more than just a story.It was a telling of a life, and I just wanted it to go on.I didn't want the book to end.The updates at the end were a nice touch, though.

All in all, a DELICIOUS story; one DEFINITELY worth owning.

This one surprised me...
It is sometimes something of a chore to find something worthwhile to read, especially after you have just read an exceptionally good book and don't want anything less worthy in your next one. I just finished World War Z a few days ago, which was as fun and entertaining a book as I have read all year, and I wanted another truly good horror book, or at least something that could make me stop thinking about my last book. I decided I wanted an award-winning book so googled "stoker awards" and "edgar awards" and saw that this book won best novel in 2001. A-ha! This should be good I thought, let's get this and get those zombies out of my head. So I did. And it was good. It wasn't anything like I thought though.

I started reading this after dinner and just kept reading until I finished around midnight. I thought this was a horror novel and that Lansdale was a horror writer. I am pretty sure he has written horror novels, but this isn't really one of them. Nevertheless the book did break the spell of World War Z and I was transported to East Texas in the heart of the depression in the 1930's where I meet Harry, an eleven year old boy growing up in the poverty of the time. This is very much his coming-of-age story, highly reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird, that follows Harry as he finds the corspe of a black woman who has been tortured and molested. Harry reports the crime to his father, the local constable and town barber. The crime happens again, and then yet again, and we begin to realize a serial killer is stalking women in the area. As the killer begins to stalk white women, racial violence, always simmering beneath the surface of the area, explodes to the grief of all. Harry, his family, and their lives are caught up and inextricably woven into this tale of sadness, discrimination, love, loyalty and learning one's space for oneself within the world.

The mystery is really never that mysterious to us that are reading the novel. After all we are such much experienced with serial killers today. The characters in the novel though cannot discern the clues around them and that is part of what makes this such an effective novel. We watch as the protagonists struggle against ignorance, fear, prejudice, discrimination and pure lack of experience as their small world is shattered one woman at a time. The denouement is also very satisfying as Harry confronts the serial killer and as he explains his own perception of himself to Harry. This is a very tender book, very well-written, and very moving and effective. I can see why it won a best book award and I think most people would enjoy this novel very much.

This is a good starter novel if you don't know Joe
This is one of those books that I lend out to people if they have never heard of an author.(yes I actually have the books returned to me) the overall story is excellent, the characters are well defined and the whole thing moves along at a nice pace. It is nice to read a detective book where all the characters are neither handsome or wealthy but have to deal with crappy day to day things like everyone else. Give it a read. If you like this move onto his Hap & Leonard series which are a hoot. Those I don't lend out.

Exceptional Edgar Award Winning Book

I picked up THE BOTTOMS after it won the 2001 Edgar Award for Best Novel. Like someone else here said, this was my introduction to Joe Lansdale. However, it won't be the last book of his I read. It was excellent and very deserving of its Edgar Award.

It's not a typical mystery or suspense. A quote on the cover calls the book another "To Kill A Mockingbird," and in my opinion, the comparison fits. Yes, there is some bad stuff going on in this book. And yes, there are some action scenes that will keep you up really late. But in total, THE BOTTOMS is a rich, sometimes brutal, look at life in the South in the 1930s. It's told from the point of view of a twelve-year old boy, and it meanders like the mind of such a boy. Yet there is nothing slow about the book. You will be tempted to savor it, even while wanting to read faster. As a writer, I found myself fascinated by the wealth of detail and texture. Yet, I was never tempted to skim.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Mr. Lansdale did an exceptional job, and I'm looking froward to reading more of his work.

... Read more

Product Description
The Nightrunners is considered by many to be one of the best horror/suspense novels to date.It has had a passionate following for years. On its twentieth anniversary, Subterranean Press will release this novel as part of its Signature Series, in a volume that also contains stories that were inspired by, or drawn from, the novel while Lansdale waited for it to sell.The novel and stories have influenced numerous writers over the years, and are now gathered for the first time (with a new, never-before-published tale) in this unique tribute volume celebrating one of the most influential and award-winning writers of the last two decades.The God of the Razor will be designed as a companion volume to the Lansdale tribute anthology, Lords of the Razor, featuring a full color cover by TimothyTruman, and twenty full page black-and-white illustrations for the short stories and novel by Glenn Chadborne. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Joker's Gone Wild With an Airship
This is a Young Adult novel about one of the Batman's Greatest cases.Well, Greatest according to our young narrator, who admits he's a bit biased because he gets to help.

The story is pretty staight ahead actioner.Recently moved to Gotham City from East Texas, our your narrator decides to creep onto a rooftop to help a cat -- it's just the right thing to do.There, he stumbles onto a mystery.The Joker, Clown Prince of Crime, has himself an airship and he's up to no good!It's up to our hero (with a little help from Batman, all right a bunch of help) to figure out the sinister plot and put an end to it.

Fun, fun, fun.This novel reads like a great comic book, the kind of thing you just don't want to put down.Luckily, the size is such that you'll be done in an hour or two.Makes great reading aloud, too. ... Read more

Book Description
Florida Grange, Leonard's drop-dead gorgeous lawyer and Hap's former lover, has vanished in Klan-infested Grovetown while in pursuit of the real story behind the jailhouse death of a legendary bluesman's blackguard son.Fearing the worst, Hap and Leonard set out to do the kind of investigating the good ole boy cops can't - or won't - do. In Grovetown they encounter a redneck police chief, a sadistic Christmas tree grower, and townsfolk itchin' for a lynchin'.Add to this a dark night exhumation in a voodoo graveyard, a thunderstorm of Biblical proportions, and flat-out sudden murder.Hap and Leonard vow to face the hate and find Florida, even if Leonard has to put a hole in anyone who gets in the way.Besides, they've packed a lunch. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Classic Lansdale
Lansdale delivers another fine novel featuring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, one of the oddest (and toughest) couples in mystery fiction.Hap, straight and white, and Leonard, gay and black, travel to Grovetown,Texas, a city that makes Johannesburg look like a bastion of racial unity.They are searching for Hap's ex-girlfriend Florida Grange, last seen there.Wisecracking all the way (even when they're getting the s**t kicked out of `em), the boys stir up a hornet's nest, and in the process learn some hard lessons about themselves and the nature of their friendship.

Two Bear evoked memories of the best of Robert B. Parker and John D. MacDonald.Parker, because of the dialogue, and MacDonald because of the characterization.Lansdale's characters are real people who can get hurt, even killed-- he really puts them through the wringer.Their adversaries aren't cardboard villains, twirling handlebar mustaches.Menacing and memorable, driven by hate, greed, prejudice, lust and ignorance, these folks are scary because you might meet them in real life.

In short, The Two Bear Mambo is classic Lansdale--a good, tough thoroughly enjoyable book that you will remember long after finishing.

Another Hap and Leonard Hit!
Books like these are what everyone should be reading. It's damn near a crime that they aren't, but I guess it makes those of us who ARE fans a special little group.

Lansdale is completely unafraid to do what he has to do to further his stories. That means people you like will die, or turn out to be bad folks. It means you can't get too comfortable and think you know what's going to happen when you settle down with one of Lansdale's masterpieces.

"Two-Bear Mambo" continues the Hap & Leonard friendship: a white heterosexual Democrat and a black homosexual Republican, respectively. The story begins on Christmas Eve, where Leonard is burning down the crackhouse next door for the third time. The two friends are approached by their police buddies and sent on a mission to track down their friend: Florida Grange - Hap's old flame and Leonard's lawyer. Grange was last seen in Grovetown, a real, live throwback to the heavily segregated racist '60's.

Of course, they leave right away, and once again start stirring up trouble and townfolk in the flooded little town. As previously mentioned, no one is ever who you think they are, and things are never what they seem.

Bravo, Lansdale.

Humor with a heavy dose of racism
Hap and Leonard just can't seem to keep themselves out of trouble. At the beginning of The Two-Bear Mambo, Leonard is yet again setting fire to the drug dealers' house next door. Their friend Lt. Hanson has to take them in just because, but when Hap's ex-girlfriend -- and Hanson's current squeeze -- Florida Grange goes missing, Hanson agrees to drop the charges if Hap and Leonard will go look for her in Grovetown, a burg in East Texas known for its violent Klan members, and where Florida was last seen.

The Two-Bear Mambo is so far the most unflinching in its portrayal of Southern racism. Grovetown is even worse than I could have imagined and Lansdale does not look away for a moment. Leonard is the obvious target, but Hap's association with him brings him into the fray of violence as well. And as for Florida: well, no one as yet has admitted to even seeing her...

My white Southern guilt was intensified while reading The Two-Bear Mambo; the characters, their ideas, and their violence are all-too familiar from my upbringing. So much so that I could barely even bring myself to read it in public, afraid of what the people around me -- seeing the N-word on nearly every page -- would think I was reading (as if the barely euphemistic title weren't embarrassing enough).

But the trademark Lansdale humor abounds in sarcastic remarks and in the first-person narration of Hap -- whose difference from the author himself seems to be getting less and less. Lansdale has said that he is very comfortable with the voice of Hap and the easy-going prose makes that obvious. Despite my emotional reaction to the book, I look forward to continuing the adventures of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. I'm glad they can't keep away from trouble; if they did, I'd be reading some other book that isn't nearly as fun.

If you can find it, GET IT!
Sad to think this book is already out of print.This one is the third installment of the Hap/Leonard series and picks up where Mucho Mojo left off.The pair rush off to the aid of a friend, but pay the price for their outsize egos as they find themselves in a part of the South where the calendars seem to be set 30 years behind schedule. There are no quick, easy resolutions to be found and the Hap and Leonard at the end of the book are markedly different from the two at the beginning.As always, Mr. Lansdale's keen ability to understand and describe human nature is evident.Highly recommended!

A TOWN'S PURE EVIL ALMOST KILLS OUR TWO HEROES!!!!
THE TWO-BEAR MAMBO by Joe R. Lansdale continues the saga of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine where MUCHO MOJO left off.It starts out with Hap arriving at Leonard's house on Christmas Eve night.Blasting out of his friend's home is the music to "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" and Leonard is next door, kicking righteous butt and burning down the neighborhood crack house once again.The police pull Hap and Leonard in, but Lieutenant Marvin Hanson gets them off the hook, provided they do him a small favor.It seems that Hap's old girlfriend, Florida Grange (the one who left him for Hanson) took off to Grovetown, Texas to do an article on a black musician who supposedly hung himself while in the custody of the local police.Florida has suddenly vanished, and Hanson wants Hap and Leonard to pay a visit to Grovetown to see if they can find out anything.The only problem is that this particular Texas town is right out of the fifties and sixties.It's a viper's nest filled with Klansmen, led by Jackson Brown, who enjoy murdering the black folks and seem to be getting away with it.Both Hap and Leonard know that they're going to have their hands full just trying to stay alive as they attempt to investigate Florida's disappearance.Even together, as tough as they are, both men are going to find out that they've bitten off more than they can chew when they take on the populace of Grovetown.They'll find themselves in the middle of free-for-all that would put Billy Jack to shame and come very close to getting beaten to death.Both men will discover true fear for the first time in their lives and have to find a way of dealing with it as their injuries heal, if they want to be able to face each other again, as well as solve the mystery of what happened to Florida when they eventually return to Grovetown to face the evil of its people.THE TWO-BEAR MAMBO will give you a slightly different perspective of our two heroes this time around, making them more flawed and human.As tough as Hap and Leonard are, they're not invincible, and both of them come very close to death as they seek to right a wrong.They will find out things about themselves that will at first be difficult to face; yet, in the long run will make them stronger.Though a part of me knows that these two characters are fictional, the writing is so good that another part of me almost believes that they're real.These are guys that I'd simply love to hang out with, and it's a tribute to the talent of Joe R. Lansdale that he's created such believable characters...characters who are funny, skilled martial artists, almost always unemployed, who have the same kinds of problems with relationships that real people do, and who have a strong sense of honor and justice that gets them into trouble more often than not.Mr. Lansdale is able to do this because he has a unique skill in writing that comes off as being natural and down to earth, but is actually a master craftsman at work.He knows how to make each and every character in the novel come alive in ways I wish other authors could emulate.I never know how each book is going to end; and, quite often, I find myself stunned by who gets killed off.As you can probably tell, the "Hap Collins/Leonard Pine" series has swept me off of my feet in a way that few other books have, and it's one I can highly recommend to any reader who loves novels filled with action, humor, self-reflection, and characters that make you truly believe.I honestly don't know what I'm going to do after I read SAVAGE SEASON and then CAPTAINS OUTRAGEOUS.I wish I could sit down with Hap and Leonard, have a beer, and talk about this particular problem.Of course, I wouldn't get any sympathy from them.In fact, I'd probably have to spend an hour or more listening to their problems!! ... Read more

Book Description
When a group of friends decided to spend a day at the world's largest Drive-In theater horror fest, they expected to see tons of bloody murders, rampaging madmen, and mayhem - but only on the screen. As a mysterious force traps all the patrons inside the Drive-In, the worst in humanity comes out. Filled with Lansdale's razor whit and black humor, The Drive-In is a darkly humorous masterpiece! Collected here is the complete four issue series with bonus material including a new interview with Lansdale himself about the writing of The Drive-In. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

TRUE DRIVE-IN HORROR
The Adaptation of Joe Lansdale's "The Drive-In" is as much about humanistic horror as it is supernatural.A devious, and visceral lab experiment with humans as the test subjects.A group of young friends in Texas decide to spend an evening at the Orbit drive-in movie theater to see an all night long horror film festival with movies like "Evil Dead", "Dawn of the Dead", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", and more, but the terror will soon turn all too real.Best friends Jack and Bob, along with sheepish Randy, and tough biker Willard think they're in for a long evening of horror classics and beer when the appearance of a meteor changes everything.Suddenly the four friends find themselves trapped in the drive-in with hundreds of other customers by an otherworldly force.They are virtually cut off from the rest of the world by a darkened sky and an impenetrable wall which virtually melts anyone who tries to leave.

Without any means of calling for help, and dwindling food supplies from the concession stand, it is the reactions of the captives that provide the true horror.Some rage forth to try and takeover the concession stand for themselves, others decide that end of the world sex is the way to go, while a fundamentalist Christian movement starts up preaching the way of God.Jack retreats into a shell and has to be pulled out of his self-imposed isolation by Bob who has a hidden stash of food in his car.Meanwhile Willard and Randy's relationship soon turns grossly symbiotic.The pair takes over the concession stand and are struck by a bolt of lightening which should have killed them both.Instead, the pair's bodies have become virtually fused together in a twisted, corroded form that now calls itself the Popcorn King.This demonic dark lord soon has most of the residents worshipping him as a God, even as he feasts upon their bodies.Bob & Jack soon realize that they may be the only hope of salvation for the survivors as they hatch a plot to destroy the Popcorn King.

Lansdale's original story is adapted by Christopher Golden who is probably best known for his Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels as well as writer of the Buffy comic for Dark Horse.He is aided greatly by the beautifully chaotic artwork of Andres Guinaldo who captures the drive-in in all its animalistic glory.The true horror isn't the demonic Popcorn King but seeing how humanity quickly degrades in the face of adversity.Typical, and outstanding Lansdale and a fine job by Golden and Guinaldo.The graphic novel also includes an interview with Landsdale.

Reviewed by Tim Janson
... Read more

Book Description
In the middle of a cyclone, beautiful, red-haired Sunset Jones shoots her husband Pete dead when he tries to beat and rape her. To Camp Rapture’s general consternation, Sunset’s mother-in-law arranges for her to take over from Pete as town constable.As if that weren’t hard enough to swallow in depression era east Texas, Sunset actually takes the job seriously, and her investigation into a brutal double murder pulls her into a maelstrom of greed, corruption, and unspeakable malice.It is a case that will require a well of inner strength she never knew she had. Spirited and electrifying, Sunset and Sawdust is a mystery and a tale like nothing you’ve read before. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

A Fun Read!!
Fun read with great characters and believable dialog.I like it when the main subjects are not perfect, have relatable traits, and are down to earth.The story has a couple of twists that make the book hard to put down.This is my first Joe R. Lansdale read and it won't be my last.Highly Recommended!

East Texas Heroine
Riley, an old farmer, doesn't think it's wise to take Peter Jones' wife to her mother-in-law since she is wearing Riley's shirt and packing Pete's .38, which she used to kill her husband.
The wind blew and Sunset Jones had had enough of her abusive husband. Marylin Jones, who owns three-quarters of the sawmill that keeps the town struggling along during the brutal depression in the East Texas hill country. Marylin pulls one and appoints her daughter-in-law to fulfill her husband's job as constable.
Joe R. Lansdale's noir tale of Jim Crow laws and the Klan has a surprise twist when Sunset takes her job seriously and wins against all odds. Not a lady to stay home and mind her knitting.
Lansdale is in a class by himself and worth every read from this talented, award winning author.
Nash Black, author of "Qualifying Laps" and "Sins of the Fathers."

The red hair is no lie
Joe R. Lansdale is in a genre all-his-own, a genre that for the most part focuses on East Texas and the characters who populate that neck of the woods. He sometimes writes with an eye on horror, and because horror wears many disguises, from zombies to child abusers to abject poverty itself, Mr. Lansdale's subject matter is often diverse and multi-faceted. But what remains unchanged throughout all his tales is the masterful story-telling, rich with human suffering and endurance. I sometimes feel as if I am reading an Erskine Caldwell or a John Steinbeck novel when reading Mr. Lansdale's work, though not because of style, mind you (Mr. Lansdale has a distinct style unique to him only), but because of the time-lines in American history in which these stories unfold, time-lines where poverty often plays a pivotal role in the story's primary conflict and resolution. Writing with an economic turn of word in _Sunset and Sawdust_, Mr. Lansdale captures an era in which practicing frugality was not an option but a necessity forced on a good many people across America, just as it is today in these inflationary times.

_Sunset and Sawdust_ unfolds during the Depression Era thirties in a sawmill town called Camp Rapture, a place peopled with the kinds of quirky characters Joe Lansdale is famous for creating. The first line in the book reads: On the afternoon it rained frogs, sun perch, and minnows, Sunset discovered she could take a beating good as Three-Fingered-Jack. And indeed our main character, Sunset Jones, does take a beating in more ways than one in this flavored tale about overcoming the odds. As the novel opens, red haired Sunset is living up to her crown-of-fire namesake when she takes one beating too many from her abusive husband Pete Jones, and shoots him in the head with his own .38, right when a mean cyclone is hitting the house, tearing it to shreds around her. (This is East Texas near the Sabine, where it can rain frogs and sun perch, and if the sheer heat, humidity, and bugs don't drive you crazy, an abusive husband certainly can, with or without tornadoes.)

Bruised and bloody from the severe beating she's taken Sunset staggers from the wreck of her home, nearly naked with a shard of broken glass embedded in her shoulder and Pete's revolver still dangling from her hand, and wanders out into the road. An old farmer named Riley, who is passing by in a wagon just then, sees her, offers her his shirt, and takes her to her mother-in-law's home when she requests the ride, though not without first commenting to her that he doesn't think it's a good idea to go to Marilyn Jones's under the circumstances. And while town matriarch Marilyn Jones is incensed over her son's killing, she eventually calms down and declares an uneasy truce between herself and Sunset by appointing Sunset the new constable of Camp Rapture, replacing the deceased Constable Pete Jones.

Equipped with her dead husband's .38 revolver holstered at her waist, Sunset undertakes her new job in earnest, surprising everyone in the process, most of all her mother-in-law, Marilyn. Moreover, when Sunset encounters the oil drenched bodies of a woman and an infant buried in a farmer's field in Camp Rapture, she dares to investigate the murders -- all this in the face of roiling opposition from the town leaders and mill workers, many who are Klan members intent on making Sunset accountable for Pete's death.

Some of the characters in _Sunset and Sawdust_ are Hillbilly, a charming ne'er-do-well hobo whom Sunset deputizes; Zendo, a farmer growing the best crops in the bottomlands where the oil drenched bodies are discovered; and Two, a nefarious, psychotic killer who almost seems supernatural, he's so creepy. But these are only a few of the many peculiar backwoods characters who people this engaging novel-with-a-social-message. Rich throughout the telling is Joe Lansdale's original and unflinching talent for turning prose into colloquialisms and dialogue into prose you will not soon forget.

Highly recommended reading.

Comedy Western
"Sunset and Sawdust" is fun to read, you will finish it quickly, root for the good guys (if you can trust `em), and look forward to seeing the movie version in the theater. The plot has twists, too many for willing suspense of disbelief, but maybe that's Landsdale's intent. The language is rich and transports the reader to the dusty hellhole (?) that was depression-era Texas.While some characters are cartoonish ("Two"), Sunset is well conceived and vividly drawn - a shoe in for a famous actress.

Poorly written and often in bad taste
Sunset and Sawdust is a mystery that takes place in East Texas during the Depression.Sunset Jones kills her abusive husband and becomes constable of the logging camp in his stead.When a dead baby is discovered, she begins an investigation that uncovers greed and villainy in the political structure and put her, and all she cares about, in grave danger.

The book jacket calls it a "wildly energetic novel--galvanizing from first to last".What the publishers call "energetic", I call overly fast paced to the point motion sickness; furthermore, I was galvanized to nothing except annoyance.Landsdale's descriptive style is generally crass and rude. Why use just a word when a cuss word or vulgar word can be put in.For example, a dying man thinks, "Goddamn, taken from behind, that's not right, not me, I'm always ready, but goddamn, I feel it, a knife in my back, tight as a bull's dick in a chicken's ass".Such needless vulgarity cheapened the scene, which should have been moving, as well as making it unrealistic.The overusage of "pussy", "bitch" and "dick" and over-focus on sex and attractive women made this appear to the be the work of a hormonal teenager.

Also unrealistic were some of the personal interactions.They seem stilted and fake, and in the case of Sunset and Lee, simply wrong.I found it extremely difficulty to believe that she could accept and trust him that quickly.With other relationships, the dynamics (Two and McBride for instance, or Hillbilly's ability to snow everyone he met) did not have the ring of truth.

In addition, Landsdale's use of run-ons, lack of conjunctures and overall poor writing skills were simply tiresome.This is the writer that has won six Bram Stoker Awards as well as three other awards?Perhaps I've caught him on a bad day.All I can say is that his style is not to my taste and the only thing that kept me reading was curiosity about the murder.I shouldn't have wasted my time, as the outcome followed true to the rest of the book and was a great disappointment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

LOVE HORROR,HATED THIS BOOK
People are trapped in a drive-in while attending a horror marathon. As times passes the people become more and more crazy. There's also a monster that has taken over and all this is supposedly the result of aliens trying to make their own low-budget horror film. Sounds great! There's no way one could go wrong with this. Ah but wrong I was indeed. This thing is horrible and by the end I was sick at the thought that I actually paid money for this book and took the time to read it. Its just people doing random weird and violent things at a drive-in. Even the "creature" mentioned on the back of the book is a disappointment since all it is is 2 people that got melded together (not a spoiler since you're there for its creation) . As for the aliens, they only make an appearance in a very brief dream sequence. The whole part about them trapping these people to make a movie really just seems like an afterthought thrown in to make the story (or lack thereof) somewhat understandable. Even the climax is one of the most disappointing I have ever had the displeasure of reading. As tempting as this book may seem to be, avoid it. Plus, keep in mind I actually like the movie "Dead End Drive-In" a lot so this book is REALLY awful.

All hail the popcorn king!
This has got to be one of Lansdale's strangest stories.One Friday night at a drive-in in Texas something comes out of the sky and nothing is going to be the same.Everything beyond the fences of the drive-in disappear andas the popcorn and candy run out strange things start to happen.A new godis born and his name is the popcorn king.

This story is extremelyoriginal, fast-paced, full of interesting characters and great dialog. Ithas everything; bad movies, cannibalism, monsters, aliens, and a few othersurprises. ... Read more

Book Description
Hideously disfigured during a bungled firecracker stand hold-up, Bill joins a traveling freak show to evade police. He doesn't stand out too much among the dogmen, bearded women, hermaphrodites, and the mysterious frozen man whose sinister aura seems to link them all.Download Description
Hideously disfigured during a bungled firecracker stand hold-up, Bill joins a traveling freak show to evade police. He doesn't stand out too much among the dogmen, bearded women, hermaphrodites, and the mysterious frozen man whose sinister aura seems to link them all. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Frozen By The Freezer And Burned By The Girl!!!
This movie is about one of life's losers, Bill Roberts. Bill's mother has died andhe doesn't want to forge her signature on her Welfare Checks. Furthermore she has left her house to an Animal Shelter in her Will. Instead of hiring a lawyer and contesting the Will (like any sane person) Bill decides to rob the fireworks stand and is soon caught up in a murder. He flees into the woods and become part of a travelling Carnival where he meets Gidget who is one cold hard hearted lady.Gidget has Murder on her mind and justifies her actions by being self aware that her and Bill are both "Rotten to the core". This book is highly entertaining and I would rank it as one of Joe R. Lansdale's best.

JUST WHO ARE THE FREAKS?
Joe Lansdale is a marvelous writer; I have enjoyed most of the books I've read of his.FREEZER BURN is certainly full of Lansdale's trademark humor and unusual scenarios, but ultimately it loses ground in the story of Bill Roberts and his involvement with Frost's freakshow.The story is filled with sexual innuendo, thoughts, and acts; Gidget is reminiscent of Kathleen Turner in Body Heat, and other femme fatales.Bill comes across selfish and uncaring at times, and when he does care, it's not enough.He's definitely a man ruled by his sexual satisfaction.Lansdale keeps the plot interesting, although the end is basically a downer, and one wonders how else Lansdale could have resolved it...guess this was the only way.Well written but not satisfying.

A HILARIOUS NOVEL ABOUT ADULTERY AND MURDER!!!
First, let me talk for a moment about the writings of Joe R. Lansdale.I'm now totally addicted to this remarkable East Texas author.I think his novel, THE BOTTOMS, is one of the true masterpieces of modern American literature.I love the "Hap/Leonard" series and could read a new novel about these two hilarious and utterly heroic characters every week, if Mr. Lansdale could write the books fast enough.I've read his novellas THE BOAR and THE BIG BLOW and have wondered why a mainstream publisher didn't pick up these two great little books.I've also read his children's story, SOMETHING LUMBER THIS WAY COMES.So far, I've enjoyed every piece of writing by him that I have read.FREEZER BURN is no exception.Though certainly different from the above books, it nevertheless is pure Lansdale at his best.This is the story of Bill Roberts, a low life who simply doesn't know any better.He's been living with his dominating mother for a long time, and when she finally dies, he decides to keep her body in the bedroom so that her social security checks will continue to come in.The only problem with the plan is that Bill is unable to successfully forge her signature on the checks.So, with a handful of checks he's unable to cash, a raucous smell permeating the house, and a couple of cans of beets in the kitchen cabinet left to eat, Bill makes the less-than-lucid decision to rob the firecracker stand across the street on the fourth of July with the help of two equally stupid acquaintances, Fat Boy and Chaplin.Like everything else in Bill's life, the robbery goes terribly wrong.The owner of the firecracker stand is murdered and then Fat Boy (he encounters a nest of water moccasins in the swamp!!!!) and Chaplin are killed in the getaway.Bill hides out in the Bottoms for a day or so, feeding the mosquitoes with his face, avoiding the poisonous snakes, and praying the law doesn't catch up with him.When he eventually comes out of hiding, he sees a carnival in a nearby field and goes to them for help.The owner of carnival, Jack Frost, takes Bill in and allows him to stay until he's completely healed from the mosquito bites, and then offers him a job.This carnival is special.It's filled with freaks: Conrad the Dog Man, U.S. Grant the Bearded Lady, the two-head Buckwheat, pin heads and punk heads, midgets, and the Ice Man.Even Frost has a hand growing out of his chest.The only other normal person (except for a couple of nasty roustabouts) besides Bill is Gidget, the wife of Jack Frost.Gidget-blonde, beautiful, sexy, and as deadly as one of those cottonmouths in the Bottoms-is every husband's worse nightmare.Over a period of weeks, Bill gradually begins to see Frost and some of the other freaks in the carnival as human beings, but it isn't his destiny to be a nice guy.Gidget has other ideas for him.It isn't long before she seduces Bill with her body and talks him into helping her kill Frost so that they can take over the carnival.Of course, like Bill's other endeavors, the plan to kill Gidget's husband will have its drawbacks and pitfalls, and nothing will turn out quite as he expects.FREEZER BURN is definitely not for everyone.I think the reader has to have a rather bizarre sense of humor and a willingness to allow the author to take him/her down a path that may seem somewhat weird to the average person, yet is actually a journey about life and what it means to be different, not to mention what goes around, comes around.This novel is Mr. Lansdale's homage to James M. Cain's THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, using the themes of lust, adultery, and murder, only with a slightly different twist.Though funny from beginning to end (yes, I have a rather bizarre sense of humor about life), this novel is also filled with poignant insights into how people treat those who are different.I also think that Mr. Lansdale is a firm believer in karma.When people do bad things, it always comes back to bite them in the butt sooner or later.I will say that the finale of FREEZER BURN is a downer; yet, I don't see how the author could've ended it differently.The story could only have one final outcome and still remain true to the very nature of who Bill Roberts and Gidget Frost actually are.If you're looking for a happy ending, this isn't the book to read.If, however, you're looking for a book that will shock you, tickle your funny bone, and make you think about prejudice in all of its sad and unhealthy forms, then this is the one to buy.

Lansdale retells 'Freaks' as a comic roman noir.
Bill Roberts is a laconic and none to smart loser that decides to rob a firecracker stand just across the street because his mother is now dead and stinking up the place and he cannot get the nerve up to forge her social security checks to get the money, which he is just about out of.With two cohorts helping him out, the robbery goes well for about two seconds.Then things go south in a hurry.Four corpses later, poor Bill stumbles out of the swamp and into a traveling carnival Freakshow run by a kind hearted man with a hand growing out of his chest and his femme fatale wife.Hoping to hide out until things cool down in the real world, Bill takes a job there and waits for the proper angles to present themselves.Gidget, the blonde bombshell wife of the show's owner, has some plans of her own as well as some very nice angles to get them done.

Freezer Burn is largely a retelling of the film 'Freaks' as a comedic roman noir.Chock full of unsavory characters that view humane behavior as stupid and weak, this is certainly not a novel for all tastes.Longtime Lansdale fans will be delighted to see him brush up on his darker roots, the ones responsible for The Nightrunners and the black as tar noir nightmare The Night They Skipped the Horror Show.Others used to the trace of nobility found in his most recent work will wonder why he wasted his time telling the tale of such an unlikable sociopath anti-hero.Being a nearly twenty year Lansdale addict I heartily recommend to his longtime fans as well as to those who just like dark hearted noir with a goofball twist.

Very Odd Mixture, But Ultimately Vintage Lansdale
I wasn't sure what to think of _Freezer Burn_ when I started it.The characters were just a bit too wild to really register.

Then, about the time the protagonist, Bill, realizes that he's starting to have unusual feelings (love, friendship) for Conrad the Wonder Dog, and Frost, the leader of a small freakshow he's hooked up with following a botched robbery, I realized that I was starting to feel all warm inside, too.

It takes a great writer to create a character like Bill--someone you'd normally cross the street to avoid--and make you care about what happens to him.I know that other reviewers didn't feel the same way, but I was right there, rooting for the poor guy the whole way.

If anything, the downbeat, noirish finale, which I should have seen coming, came as a bit of a surprise, even though we've all seen this a thousand times before (think _Double Indemnity_ or _Body Heat_).

Heck, I would have been happy just following Bill's adventures with the freakshow for a few more hundred pages.I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it highly, though it's obviously not for all tastes. ... Read more

Book Description
Hap Collins, chicken plant guard, saves a young woman. However, no good deed goes unpunished when he takes his best friend Leonard on a Caribbean cruise. Misbehaving at a lobster dinner, the two are abandoned in Mexico, where Leonard is saved from armed attackers by a geriatric fisherman and his lovely daughter-currently involved with a Mexican mobster and a practicing nudist. Trying for once to stay out of other people's business, Hap returns to East Texas but is overwhelmed when he learns of the senorita's murder. Not taking it lying down, he and Leonard return to Mexico to even the score.Download Description
Hap Collins, a chicken plant guard, saves a young woman from an attacker, and her father, the owner of the plant, rewards Hap with a large cash bonus. No good deed goes unpunished, however, and when Hap decides he and his best friend Leonard should take a cruise to Mexico and the Caribbean, their troubles begin. Leonard, angered by coat-and-tie rules at an on-board lobster dinner, causes the two to be removed from the ship in Mexico, where in short time Leonard buys an ugly hat, is knifed by an off duty policeman, and is saved from armed attackers by a geriatric fisherman and his lovely daughter. The daughter turns out to have a past that involves a Mexican mobster who's a practicing nudist and has a seven-foot tall lackey who resembles a sumo wrestler. Trying for once to stay out of other people's business, Hap is overwhelmed with regret when the senorita is murdered, and the evil that haunted her follows him home to East Texas, resulting in the death of one of Hap's closest friends. Hap is hot for revenge, and he, Leonard, and Jim Bob Luke, a hog-raising private eye, return to Mexico to even the score. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Lives up to most of the hype
I was looking for a mystery with a comic touch and this delivered.It is my first Landsdale book and I plan to try others in the Collins and Pine series.I actually laughed out loud several times.The author keeps the story moving and even though the main characters have some superhero characteristics you can ignore that and sit back and enjoy the fast moving story.A realistic take on Mexico doesn't hurt.All in all a good read.

Good stuff
Joe Lansdale is one of the few writers who can make me laugh till I cry. That's a rare gift, and he did it to me again with this book. Here, Lansdale keeps it going with his dynamic duo, the fairly happy-go-mostly-unlucky Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. In this story, Hap becomes a hero, gets rewarded, and he and Leonard take a cruise. To make a long story short, they end up in Mexico, where they meet a fisherman who owes a great debt; his beautiful (and dutiful) daughter; a walking gargantua, and a nudist Mexican gangster who'd like nothing more than to make a big bowl of gaucamole, with Hap and Leonard as the main ingredients.

Captains Outrageous is truly outrageous and fun. I'll be looking for more from this very talented author.

An ugly story that killed my soul
I picked this up because it was supposed to be funny."Joe R. Landsdale is sure to keep you laughing," said the quote from Publishers Weekly right on the cover.So I figured I'd give it a try.

Man, this is one mean-spirited, depressing piece of fiction.There is so much violence, cruelty, and negativity in these pages that I could only get halfway through it.I guess I'm just too sensitive because I can't have characters being tortured, beaten, and abused in graphic detail and then just turn around and laugh at some stupid joke.

And the jokes aren't even very good.

Sadistic tale
I think like many book series, you can't start mid-series. I read many glowing reviews of this book and most of them mention the previous books. Coming into this fresh (I'd not heard of Joe R. Lansdale), the characters and the plot seemed very thin, although the earlier books probably established these elements. When I first started the book, it seemed like a strange amalgam of political correctness, graphic violence, and Fletch-like irreverence. As the story progresses, however, dreadful scene piles on dreadful scene until the book comes across as truly sadistic.

There is an ugly American (Billy) who seeks to humiliate a Mexican girl in the most unpleasant and crude matter. The reader endures many pages of this behavior. I suppose these scenes are intended to justify Hap and Leonard brutally assaulting this guy again and again and again. Finally, Hap literally spreads his own feces on Billy's face, beats him, and makes him stand in the corner. And then does it again. This comes in a scene right after our "heroes" discover a girl that's been dismembered with a machete. The reader is treated to an explanation of where the individual pieces of the girl are located about the hotel room. The graphic violence continues up until the final chapter of the novel.

Oh, did I mention that the book opens with a brutal beating of another girl whom Hap saves?Unfortunately for the girl, Hap doesn't save her until after she's been repeatedly raped, had her face "stomped in," her nipple bitten off, jaw crushed, teeth knocked out, and lost an eye.

Wow. Is this a fun read? I guess it's not my cup of tea.

HAP HAZARD
Poor Hap Collins and Leonard Pine...no matter what they do, they always come out involved in a messy, stinky situation.Once again, Joe Lansdale's "amateur" sleuths find themselves embroiled in murder and mayhem, and it all starts with a good deed.At his new job at the chicken factory, security guard Hap prevents the murder of a wealthy young woman by a crazed maniac.Her millionaire father shows his appreciation by giving Hap a check for a hundred thousand dollars.Leonard, now with his new love John, tells Hap they should go on a cruise..no real reason, just that they've never been on one before.Needless to say, this vacation turns into a nightmare when Leonard mouths off at the concierge and they find themselves stranded in a little fishing town.Enter a beautiful woman, her poor father, some wealthy tourists and we begin our tale of murder and deceit.Lansdale continues his gift for natural dialogue and unique, but believable, situations.We meet a crime lord and his seven foot bully, Hammerhead.It seems sometimes that Lansdale can be a little cruel in his treatment of some of his subordinate characters (Billy for example), and he tends to overdo the sexual innuendo and the sexual encounters.But it's a man's world, and Lansdale knows it.At least the lovely if foul mouthed Brett Sawyer is back, and by the end of the book, who knows..wedding bells?
A fine entry in this well executed series. ... Read more

Product Description
The endlessly inventive mind of Joe R. Lansdale whips up yet another batch of stories to amaze, surprise, and entertain you.His new offering covers a lot of territory, producing what may be his best short story collection yet.One tale concerns an East Texas mule race in the early 1900s that proves to be an unexpected turning point and learning experience for the main character, a lifelong loser. It also chronicles the unusual circumstances of the race, which include a friendship between a rare white mule that can run like the wind, and his friend, a loyal, spotted pig.Another tale drops us into the disturbed mind of a mass murderer and his friendship with the shadows.Two others stories reintroduce us to the supernatural adventures of Reverend Rains, the flawed hero from Lansdale's cult favorite novel, Dead in the West. Here ghouls prowl and werewolves howl.There's a poetic collaboration with Melissa Mia Hall about the nature of loneliness and loss that echoes back to science fiction stories of an earlier time, as well as a famous, award winning novella reprinted here for the first time in several years about a clutch of unusual crime solvers.Read about a world where the dead almost rule, and venture into an alternate universe that is the background for perhaps the strangest tale of all, an adventure concerning an earnest and horny steam shovel named Bill, and his challenge to do the right thing at all costs.It's the usual wild and crowd pleasing display of what has become a subgenre of modern literature as only Joe R. Lansdale can present it: Tales Lansdalien.Welcome to his world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Don't Call Him Joe; Call him MoJoe now; this book is that good!!!
In The Shadows, Kith and Kin, Joe R. Lansdale attempts to show you that you've got something in common with either the strange, bizarre, sick, or horrific. Each story seems to take on characters that do unholy things or characters who are so far outside of the realm of normalcy that it doesn't seem possible that there is any point of writing about them:they're too d**n waked out for anyone to believe in them. But then MoJoe Hisownself not only makes you believe in them, he makes you pull for them, cheer for them, pray for them, and even cry for them. You'll get pulled into their world in spite of the distance between you and them and you both come out better for it. The only story reprinted in this collection is the 1992 Bram Stoker winner, "The Events Concerning a Nude Fold-Out Found in a Harlequin Romance," which considering it's so good isn't a bad thing for someone coming to Lansdale for the first time. Even if you've read it before, it's so good it begs for rereading. My favorite story is Joe's take on both The Little Engine That Could and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel which he calls "Bill, the Little Steam Shovel." Bill here has to learn to believe in himself, see? He's got to believe that he can work, that he has a Dave who will care for him, that he's got a place in society, and, above all, that he can get some bumper from Miss Maudie. Along the way he's befriended by the wise and tuckered-but-tough steam shovel, Gabe, an unforgettable and kind and wonderful character. This book was heavily advertised as the return of Reverend Jebidiah Rains, whom we haven't seen sense the genre-generating novel, Dead in the West. Here we get him in two tales:"Deadman's Road" (a morality tale about hateful and recalcitrant sinners who have no human compassion and the sacrifice that some times has to be made for God's moral order) and "The Gentleman's Hotel" (a Lansdale type of action-packed, true love story mixed with werewolves that would make Lon Chaney, Jr. jealous -- they're probably just as foolishly arrogant as Chaney was, too). You also get two post-Apocalypse tales, "The Long Dead Day" and "Alone." Both are sadly and woefully nihilistic and rival Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog, even coming in under word-weight. It's like watching a bantam-weight battling a heavyweight and taking him the full count. Then, of course, you've got a white-trash, down-home, Southern-fried tale that regales its reader with brilliantly cooked up mishaps:"White Mule, Spotted Pig." The opening tale, from which the collection takes its name, is a truly scary story about a young man that decides to become a sniper in a college's bell tower; realistically scary and woefully timely. Joe Lansdale has never been better in creating well-crafted prose than he is in this collection. The book itself, stitched together by the Subterranean Press, is simply pretty:the boards are covered in nice, dark green cloth and the end papers are textured, (nice)rust orange, and there is even a signature page with Joe's sig. The full-color cover by Mark A. Nelson is a classic, depicting scenes from four of the stories. This is a great addition to Joe's oeuvre, and it proves that he is still hitting homeruns every time he steps up to bat.

Joe, The Reverend and Harlequin Fold-Out
Another five stars collection of (partly) unreleased tales by Hisownself.
Do not miss the return of Reverend Jebidiah Rains from "Dead in the West" his smoking guns fight again against Evil!
Another interesting issue is the reprinting of the novellette "The Events Concerning a Nude Fold-Out Found in a Harlequin Romance": pure Lansdale, yummm...
But all the contents are outstanding so be sure you'll have a good read. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Start with two best friends who practice martial arts in their free time: one a straight white guy, the other a black gay guy.Add a conniving ex-wife in a blue-jean miniskirt. Throw in half a million in a muddy creekbed somewhere near the Sabine River in East Texas. Add an ex-radical from the '60s and two naive idealists who want to save the world. Mix them all together in a half-assed plan, season with double-crosses, and then top it off with a hilarious and chilling drug dealer named Soldier. Bloody mayhem a la Lansdale. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

White Trash Splatter Detective w/a Moral
This is the story of a friendship, Hap Collins's & Leonard Pine's, that goes awry when Hap decides to take up an ill-fated adventure that hearkens back (at least in his mind) to the sixties, a time of "love and peace and social upheaval," a time when love "and God had given us a ray of light, and in its glow, wonderful things happened." It is all a story of maturity:Hap's maturity. After facing betrayal, murder, physical pain and suffering beyond measure, he comes back around again to this ethical and moral belief:"[T]o lose my idealism, to quite believing in the ability of human beings to rise above their baser instincts, was to become old and bitter and of no service to anyone, not even myself." In this first novel of the Hap & Leonard series, Lansdale proves beyond any doubt that all those awards he's been given of late have long been overdue. All the splatter-punk and white-trash themes and all-too, down-home humor that we know him for are here in full force, and they are rendered in such a powerful and loving and carefully planned way, that we are very aware we are in the presence of a powerful and truly literary force. (BTW, the edition picture here is published by London-based Phoenix books paperback. For less money, you can get cheaper editions, ex-libraries and even the Ziesing 1990 hardcover first edition.)

I hate the word "thriller" but....
This was the second of Lansdale's novels I'd read, and it's a great intro to Hap and Leonard (these guys appear in several novels of his at this point).

The characters are not only very well-rounded and fully realized, but I felt like they were old friends of mine by the time the book was done.

More so, the writing style is just so much fun; the man's got these wonderful turns-of-phrase, and, unlike so many books today, it's not "Written for the screen." It's an actual book. There's more than just dialogue on these here pages.

Good stuff.Only 3 stars b/c "Mucho Mojo" and "Two-Bear Mambo" are even better.

The start of something beautiful
There's little to be said of the Hap and Leonard novels other than they are immensely entertaining, witty, and fast paced. Lansdale's voice is at times hilarious, and at times poignant. There are real souls to these characters, and you really care about them.

In this first installment, Hap and Leonard find themselves in the middle of a treasure hunt gone awry. It's a very short novel that can be read in a day if you've got the time. Plot-wise, it's not as good as Rumble Tumble or Mucho Mojo or the others, but it relies heavily on character development, and that is always a good thing.

Like Elmore Leonard, Lansdale's cast of characters are bizzare to the nth degree, yet despite their zaniness, he manages to make them human. This has got to be my favorite Buddy series. Always gets me laughing.

Lansdale's First Hap & Leonard Book
"Savage Season" kicks off the six-book series featuring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine against the backdrop of rural East Texas.The writing is gritty and very noir and reminisicent of Jim Thompson. Of the other three I have read so far, this one was the best.

Warmly recommended
The first in an amazing series involving Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, two most unlikely heroes (though heroes they are). The author performs a powerful magic that transforms a tale with a violent twist about characters that are theoretically undesireable into something unique and hard to put down or forget.Furthermore, should you never laugh out loud when reading this and don't feel moved to buy one of the other Hap & Leonard books I'll be surprised.The story, set in East Texas, is about a treasure hunt, Hap's old girl and much more.Caveat: this is perhaps the weakest of the series - it still rates 5 stars. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Wonderful stuff
Joe Lansdale has the stuff. He's one of the most entertaining writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading, and he never fails to make me laugh...no faint praise indeed, since most writers lack that ability. Lansdale has a special mojo (no allusion intended). He simply clicks. The magic comes right to you, right off the page. It surrounds you, sweeps you up like a Texas tornado, whaps your noggin a few times, then drops you, sometimes gently, sometimes not. When the ride is over you're bumped a bit, but you're left with a smile on your face and you've got a hearty appreciation for a good ride.

Many of Lansdale's short stories revolve around people who aren't very nice to begin with (though not at all uninteresting)who have things happen to them that are, uhm...not very good. These events happen in a progressive manner, starting with not so good and ending in downright terrible. (See the stories "The Mule Rustlers" and "Screwup" in this collection and you'll know what I mean). The rest of the stories in Mad Dog Summer are no less riveting, no less entertaining. So read, enjoy, and be amazed.

The longer, the better
As a fan of Joe R. Lansdale, I look forward to each new release with relish. Sometimes, however, these releases are difficult for a man of modest means to acquire, especially when several of Lansdale's works are published by small press publisher Subterranean Press. For a standard hardback release, Mad Dog Summer and Other Stories has a rather high price tag: $40 retail (Amazon and other sellers often offer a discount, but even that is usually not enough).

So imagine my surprise when I came across this signed limited edition collection of eight fiction pieces (four short stories alternating with four novellas, each with an introduction from the author "hisownself") in the library! I couldn't have been more excited, literarily speaking. Mad Dog Summer and Other Stories turns out to be a bit of a mixed bag, however. Although I like Lansdale's short work, in general its more uneven than his novels. The same occurs here: Two of the four short pieces fall short of ideal, which all four novellas are worthy of celebration.

"The Mule Rustlers" is all about taking fictional revenge on whomever stole Lansdale's own mule years ago. It has a lot of the same great features of other Lansdale fiction, but the unfair ending leaves a bad taste. "Screwup," on the other hand, is pure fun to read. A loser gets in over his head and spends the rest of the time just digging himself deeper while trying to get out of trouble. There's not much in the way of backstory or character development, just one event after another leading up to an ironic, but entirely appropriate, ending, but you won't care. (This is the second story Lansdale has written with his wife, Karen. The first, "A Change of Lifestyle," is available in Bumper Crop.)

"Veil's Visit" was written with Andrew Vachss, a practicing lawyer as well as a writer, who wanted the opportunity to fictionally "defend" Leonard Pine (of Lansdale's Hap and Leonard series of novels) of a crime he committed in more than one of those books. It's short and has an obvious agenda, but until the next Hap and Leonard novel comes along, it's do. Later, Lansdale remembers his mother, and how she influenced his life, in "O'Reta, Snapshot Memories." Like the title says, it's not a linear narrative, but the author fills the prose with such genuine emotion that it's easy to get swept up in it.

"Way Down There" combines cartoons with comic books, Jules Verne with Edgar Rice Burroughs, all with that inimitable Lansdale stamp. A special group of friends go to Hell to rescue Satan (it makes sense in the story) and learn a lot about the underworld along the way. It even includes references for further reading, assuming you've got the right kind of library.

I tried to read some Philip Jose Farmer once and just couldn't get into it. But Lansdale calls him his "outright favorite" (though he does admit to Farmer's unevenness) and wrote "The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down" in tribute. It's a sci-fi Western, complete with metal men, talking ape folk, and rips in the space-time continuum right alongside crusty, meat-eating, livestock-screwing people of the land. Throw in astronauts, torture, and a hearty dose of cannibalism, and you got a wild ride that surprises at every turn. After this recommendation, I may just have to give Farmer another try.

"The Big Blow" just may be a perfect story. Set during the Galveston hurricane of 1900, it offers action, sex, violence, cleansing, redemption, and a small dose of history, as it happens to typically Lansdalean characters. Centering around a boxing match between John McBride and "Lil" Arthur Johnson (later to be called Jack), it's a real action piece, its 56 pages flying past like roundhouse punches. The characters and setting feel impressively realistic, and the plot is entirely believable. I had read it once before, when it came around in rotation on the Free Stories section of the author's website, and it's even better the second time around. I could imagine visiting "The Big Blow" yet again, and I'm not much for re-reading.

The title novella is the last piece in Mad Dog Summer and Other Stories. Fans of Lansdale's Edgar Allan Poe Award-winning The Bottoms may recognize it as the inspiration for that novel. It was originally written to order for publication in Al Sarrantonio's Bram Stoker Award-winning 999 anthology, but Lansdale felt that this story of a young boy's search for a serial killer in the Sabine River Bottoms of East Texas during the Great Depression deserved to be expanded.

A warning: if you have any intention of reading The Bottoms, skip "Mad Dog Summer." They're the same story with the same solution. That said, the novella is an ideal way for fans of the novel to revisit the experience without the same time commitment. I got lucky in being able to read Mad Dog Summer and Other Stories, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to fans of the "champion mojo storyteller." It's also a fine place to start for the newcomer, as it gives a look at the author's ability to span genres without losing his own special touch that keeps his readers coming back time and time again.

Yet another great place to start....
Just received this book yesterday and sorting my way through
some familiar and the off the wall gems. When you pick up Joe R.
Lansdale short stories you won't find the same old stories,
you'll find some good life lessons and hard luck, some shock
and laughs and down home tales, usually from a very twisted perspective at times. Always top notch stories. I especially
enjoyed joe's expanded novel several years ago, "THE BIG BLOW", with everybody's eyes wide open to hurricanes(this year) this is a good time
to read Joe's take on the most massive early century hurricane and the story of a boxer's inner battles. The combination is a knockout! Also included is one of my two very favorite Lansdale
yarns, (novella size also) called "Mad Dog Summer", which is about as good a story to read as they come by, Lansdale style.
This is a newer turn Joe's taken off the path over the past several years. Stylized from a generation or two once removed, writing in a vein much like the great Lee novel, "To kill a mockingbird" yet purely all Lansdale, this is an award winning novella(as was the full length fully realized "The Bottoms"(Edgar Award winner) from which this was spawned, a story that you won't soon
forget and I'm glad its the title tale and back out. This should be standard reading in all schools across this country,
its that good,(should have won a Pulitzer for such a compeling
piece of fiction). Even though Joe's moved away from some of his earlier shock and awe tales, he never quite lets us off
the hook when it comes to in your face gritty reality and that to me
has always been one of his greatest gifts, he know how to pack a big punch with his words without going overboard with 1000 page novels (and short stories).These stories are made to be savored and read
many times over the years, enjoy them, I sure am. Its also nice to see Joe pay tribute to his mother and share his views at the
same time. Joe's a BIG supporter of children and it all starts
with good parents-teachers and values, another reason I've always found
his stories to be REAL, regardless of their style.
... Read more

Amazon.com
Becky got raped. Her husband Monty has the "lack of balls blues." Bad dude Brian blames Becky for the death of his closest friend. When Becky and Monty drive north from Galveston into the piney woods of East Texas, and hole up in a cabin to recover, Brian and his compadres make a date for revenge. Then the God of the Razor shows up. A brilliant, hypercharged horror novel with sex, violence, a black '66 Chevy and a plastic Jesus with a lightbulb inside. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A rare gem . . .
This is Lansdale's first, and finest, work -- unfortunately, it's long been out of print and collectible prices are astronomical.Apparently now that Joe has gone onto bigger and "better" things (like his bestselling series about a gay Black southern civilian detective-hobbyist), he'd prefer to forget about his past.Woe be unto any fan of his mainstream novels who stumbles upon this nasty little secret by "that nice Mister Lansdale."

I'd never heard of this book before -- nor had a friend, who is a huge Lansdale fan.Looking up "splatterpunk" on Wikipedia I was surprised to see mention of the same Joe Lansdale I'm familiar with -- and the amazon reviews convinced me that this was going to be page after page of gratuitous and highly explicit violence, so I just had to add it to my Inter Library Loan queue.

If you're familiar with the splatterpunk sub-genre, or "extreme horror" as it's nowadays called, you'll probably find the violence somewhat tame.Yes, it is violent, but Lansdale is a skilled writer who doesn't need to linger unnecessarily on the description of said violence for the titillation of freaks attracted to such.Not a mainstream book by any stretch of the imagination . . . but it really should be.

Like King, Lansdale knows that it is not spooks and monsters that terrify us, but the atrocities of which humankind is oh so capable.The casual violence of the sociopath -- which degrades into rape and slow torture when he realizes that, hey, he's got a few hours to kill and ain't no-one gonna interrupt.This is what the goblins lurking outside our civilized society like to do.They are sadistic, they are vile, and they are REAL.Like the boogyman, wussified liberal dingbats want to deny their existance -- until, like the protagonists -- they come face to face with their worst nightmare . . . and Officer Friendly ain't there to save the day (or he's rapidly cooling on the front lawn with a bullet in his head -- several cop-killings in this story).

One thing that surprised me was the startlingly accurate depiction of demonic possession portrayed within.I've studied Comparative Demonology for years (accounts and legends from all cultures throughout recorded history), and folks, it ain't anything like "The Exorcist".The typical possession involves a malevolent entity taking near total control of a human host almost like slipping into a skin suit.They appear to be "normal", but the perceptive can see the malice in their eyes, hear it in their voice, and note it in their actions.Most sadistic sociopaths seem to have much in common with the demonically possessed."The God of the Razor" takes possession of a youth gang leader -- and when he dies, transfers the leader's mind to his lieutenant in a form of dual possession.The astral/oneric interaction with "The God of the Razor" seemed quite authentic to me.

This novel was very well written, sensitive to the delicate subject matter (without going into lurid detail), and an utterly absorbing read.The motivation of the sociopathic gang members is consistant with that of goblins I've met in the past (Clyde sodomizes a former teacher because, "She was nice to me once, and I've been thinking about that *** ever since").This book should be more widely read: there are genuinely evil creatures walking amongst us, and that fact is ignored at your peril.

The Darkest, Nastiest, Most Disturbing Mainstream Horror Book Ever
Here's a book that should NOT be read in the young adult circle. "The Nightrunners" is my stock answer to the question, "What's the most extreme horror novel you've ever read?" In the hands of most other writers, it would be dismissable as sick, even pornographic, with its hyper-violent storyline, sex-driven villains, and the whole "riding the razor" thing ... However, this was written by Joe Lansdale, and he's both talented and empathetic. His characters don't just force stories along. They resonate.

I will say, I read this book when I was much younger, and I still recall how disturbing, upsetting, and riveting the book was. It had a lasting hold and influence on me. That reason, more than any other, is why I include the caviat FOR ADULTS ONLY, that to date I have not put on any other book I've reviewed. Great stuff, but not for everyone.

(This review posted by Marcus Damanda, author of the vampire book "Teeth: A Horror Fantasy.")

The Nightrunners
I had read more recent Lansdale books (A Fine Dark Line, The Bottoms, etc.), so when I read this book I was little behind the times.Nightrunners is a show of the extreme dark side of human nature and what happens when light and dark begin to mix unwittingly.Lansdale is a master with the articulation of how good must fight the murky veil of evil without falling into the same mindset or abyss of an incredibly chaotic and insane situation that he draws so well in his story.The story compels one to reevalute the weakness of a person that when confronted with nightmarish horrors, as presented in this book, that person will not only rise to the ocassion, but can find a hidden strengh that may well take the breath away.Some books have to be read between the lines, not just as horror stories; i.e. The Drive-In: A Double Feature Omnibus, but as studies of human nature.When you read Nightrunners and are immediately plunged into the depth and degradation of the human spirit, you are also reading about the characters who are regular people who battle their own, albeit well-hidden, dark side.But when really examined, both are chasing their own demons and their own side of weaknesses and strengths.The big question is, which side will win out.Like the movies, we all want a happy ending.Just dont't go to the triple feature at the Orbit Drive-In.
I purchased a hardbound copy in excellent condition and it is on its way to Lansdale right now to be signed.

Extremely scary. Extremely disturbing and very violent
I got into Joe Landsdale through his comic book work and I thank G-d that he took those jobs because it lead me to this twisted nasty little edge of Hell. A nice liberal couple comes face to face with hell when the wife is raped and the husband must confront his notions about human goodness head-on and ponder whether or not he is a coward instead of a pacifist. Meanwhile the rapist, hanging in his cell, isn't completely dead as his compatriots are alive and well and one of them is possessed. The car is racing towards them ready for more death. This book brings you face to face with pure evil.

There are rough portions. The teenagers are just nasty and evil, while you can see the husband's transformation from weakling to ravenous fighter coming a mile away. But this is an amazing book on its own merits and shouldn't be read if you are expecting a deep philosophical treatise on human nature. It's just fast, evil and damn good.

Creepy
Another Landsdale book that's out of stock. What a shame. This one wasgenuinely creepy. It could give you nightmares. ... Read more

Amazon.com
In the second installment of the Hap Collins-Leonard Pine series,Leonard is still recuperating from the injuries he suffered in the first book (Savage Season) when he learns that his Uncle Chester has died. Hap agrees to stay with Leonard and help clean out the rundown house that he's inherited; when they find a small skeleton buried under the floor, it's up to them to prove that Chester wasn't responsible for a string of child murders by finding the real killer.

Lansdale slowly develops the relationship between his two protagonists as they banter with each other throughout their pursuit of the killers. Mucho Mojo also introduces two other characters, LaBorde Police Department members Lieutenant Marvin Hanson and his sidekick, Charlie, who serveas ongoing sources of friction--and, when it's most needed, support.Download Description
In the hellish July heat, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine clean out the house of Leonard's just-dead Uncle Chester. But as they clear away the filth, they uncover a dirty secret. Beneath the rotting floorboards, Hap and Leonard unearth a small skeleton, wrapped in porno magazines. Thinking white, Hap wants to call the cops. Leonard, versed in the unwritten codes of his black neighborhood, persuades Hap otherwise. Together they're about to clear Chester's name sans outside reinforcement--as they dig up the deepest, ugliest truth of all under the blister of an East Texas sun. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (28)

Excellent
Lansdale has perhaps created one of the most interesting couplings in Hap Collins and Leonard Pine - a Democrat white heterosexual and a Republican black homosexual, respectively. Their interactions alone are nearly interesting enough, when you add the actual plotline to the mix, you have a no-fail concoction.

Hap and Leonard are dealing with the aftermath of "Savage Season," the first book in the Hap and Leonard series, when Leonard's Uncle Chester dies, leaving him his run-down house and some mysterious, seemingly random items. To boot, Uncle Chester's got a "bottle tree" in his backyard to ward off the eponymous "mucho mojo" (meaning "much bad magic"). This charming abode has a few unpleasant aspects - it's a few dorrs down from a functioning crackhouse and it has the skeletal remains of a young boy in a box under the floorboards. It's up to Hap and Leonard to decipher the unusuals clues Uncle Chester left, and figure out just who is committing such heinous crimes.

There are some wonderful characters in this novel - some will strike you as not-good-people almost from the get-go, and some will take you by real surprise. Lansdale is magic with his dialogue, and Hap and Leonard have some of the Best Conversations Ever. I cannot recommend this enough.

A different kind of hard-boiled
Lansdale writes tough, and this book has some of the most effective and sinewy descriptions of close-in, bareknuckle conflict you'll find.The unlikely pair of protaganists are much more than action heroes, though: they manage to be quirky, philosophical, and prone to late-night conversations that ring of true friendship.The secondary characters are well-drawn as well, particularly the elderly neighbor and a pair of policemen who provide something of a mirror-image to the main duo.The nature of the characters and their relationships yield blunt yet astute commentary on matters of race, sex, and justice.

The only real weakness here is the central mystery, which is a bit telegraphed and overwrought.One gets the feeling that Lansdale might have done better with a straight storyline, which these characters could easily carry.

Must read MORE Lansdale
The first book I read was "the Bottoms" I thought it was really good then I stumbled on "thin dark line" and I liked that even better so of course I told my librarian I MUST read the others so then I read 'mucho mojo" which is my first Hap Collins and Leonard Pine story and I LOVED it couldn't help laughing aloud I can't wait to read another they seem like great guys hope the adventures continue

Thought-provoking crime thriller
Novels in the mystery and suspense genres often get a bad rap, with aspirations to something other than the typical being overlooked, or at most touted as "transcending the genre." The second entry in Joe R. Lansdale's series starring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, Mucho Mojo, is a book just like that.

When Leonard's uncle Chester dies, he inherits the old homeplace. This causes complex feelings in Leonard since Chester had disowned Leonard on learning that Leonard was gay. While he and Hap are fixing up the place, they discover a large wooden box in which is found a child's skeleton and a stash of child porn magazines. Despite the obvious circumstantial evidence, Hap urges Leonard to look into alternative explanations. Meanwhile, they meet up the drug dealers across the street, a local preacher with questionable motives, and the lovable MeMaw, Leonard's neighbor who always has time (and an open invitation) for a glass of tea.

In addition to the plot involving the secret murders of several of a small town's black children, Mucho Mojo investigates such heavy subjects as relationships -- whether black-white, man-woman, gay-straight, adult-child, young-old -- and racism. And all the while Lansdale delivers a cracker of a crime novel, with a terrific ending, that continues the story of the main characters as begun in Savage Season.

What?
I've read all the reviews to Mucho Mojo and I wonder if the other reviewers read the same book.Hap & Leonard are neither funny nor cool, just lame.The plot was slow and predictable. I had it figured out about half way through.I stuck with it hoping there would be a last chapter plot twist, but there was none.This should have been a 30 page short story not a 300 page novel.Stay away. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (11)

Not Lansdale's best, but not unforgivable.
Since reading Mucho Mojo in early 1995, I have followed Joe R. Lansdale's work religiously.I found myself drawn to his politically incorrect humor, boundless imagination, and the simple fact that he understands how REAL working people live.As long as he keeps on writing, I'll keep on reading.For better or worse.

And when I say worse, I mean this little (199 pages) collection right here.It's not that these stories are bad - well not a large portion of them -, it's just that they are weak when compared to JRL's later work.But that's understandable when you consider that most of them were written early in his career.It's painfully obvious that for the better part of the 1980s, he had yet to discover his own writing style.Then again, doesn't every great writer have this problem early on?

Getting back to the stories, most of them are very short (26 stories, 199 pages) and leave too little room for development.Some of them ("Fish Night" and "The Fat Man"), as JRL will tell you hisownself, are homages to Ray Bradbury that seem to draw a little too heavily upon the latter writer's influence.Others are the type of short-short fiction that is popularized by writers like Frederic Brown and Richard Christian Matheson.Unfortunately, they are marred by predictability and shaggy dog endings.And one story here ("Billie Sue") is just flat out awful.If I were an editor that was unfamiliar with Lansdale's work and I was handed this story, I would say "Don't quit your day job."

But there are times even in this slightly disappointing collection that JRL's brilliance shines through."In the Cold, Dark Time" hauntingly depicts a near future war in which American children are forced to take up arms."Pilots" is a brutal full throttle tale about a group of badly disfigured young men who murder truck drivers because their Air Force dreams were crushed (among other things) by a drunken trucker.My favorite story in the collection is the last one - "Master of Misery".Here a disgraced kickboxer flees to the Caribbean to escape the tragic outcome in one of his matches only to be manipulated into another fight.

It pains me to give such a low rating to anything by Lansdale, but when the quality of his later work is taken into consideration, I have no choice.Out of all his collections, I would probably recommend this one first and then work your way into books like Writer of the Purple Rage and Mad Dog Summer: And Other Stories.As far as Bumper Crop goes, there are far better books from Lansdale. And there are far worse books from other authors.

Workmanlike
I don't grade on a curve and give every book a 5 start rating.
The author says that Bumper Crop means the overage from a good crop.These stories basically did not make the author's cut for a previous collection.That explaination nails the collection right on.They are fine stories, with a bit of a low rent Lovecraft feel to more than a few of them. I used the book for bedside reading but it would work as travel reading just as well.I read and enjoyedone of the author's Texas buddy tales and decided to try his horror stories.As I say this isn't memorable but it's a good read.

Nice Companion Piece to High Cotton
While I haven't read "High Cotton" yet, I have read most of the stories in it.As had I read most of the stories in this anthology."Bestsellers Guaranteed" and "By Bizarre Hands" collected the majority of Lansdale's fiction back in the day, and it is from these two books where the majority of these two books come.I think he focuses on novels now, and I'm not sure how much short fiction he has published in the last decade or so.Rather than simply reprinting them with a new introduction, Lansdale and editors put these two collections together.

That's fine with me... There are some new attractions.Lansdale includes a new introduction to each story.His introductions are often so funny I wish he would compile a collection of intros and other nonfiction."A Fistfull of Stories" collected a good bit of his nonfiction, for those who are interested.I enjoyed this collection, as it had been so long since I'd read most of the stories I had forgotten many of them.I look forward to the next mainstream Lansdale story collection which, hopefully, will contain a majority of new material.

Glimpses at greatness.
If High Cotton could have been titled The Best of Joe R. Lansdale, then Bumper Crop's revised one would be The Early Stories of Joe R. Lansdale.I have been a fan of Lansdale since 1982 or so, back when he was beginning to see regular print in the pages of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine -and it is nice to have those short shorts that I remember so clearly (The Dump, Chompers, etc.) finally collected into a book format.Most of the stories in this collection were written fast, or before Lansdale had discovered, refined, and polished his blackly comic and ruggedly vulgar writing style, so those expecting the artistic heights found in High Cotton will be confused or disappointed.These are the stories that contained the flickers and hints of the greatness that was growing within Lansdale's writing.Highly recommended.

Joe Gets Weird
The stories contained in this collection are, in a word, weird.I love Lansdale's stuff and originally got into his work as a horror fan, enjoying "The Night They Missed The Horror Show" so much that I quickly snatched up all of his "horror" stuff.After reading the excellent short story collection "High Cotton" I moved on to "Bumper Crop" expecting more of the same.

While "Bumper Crop" has its fair share of horror tales, the stories are more along the lines of weird Twilight Zone-esque yarns, with the strangest twists and turns you'll ever read.There are also a few fantasy-type pieces, and some rather intensely violent pieces that play out only as Lansdale can do.Absolutely worth reading, but if you're more of horror fan, I recommend "High Cotton" as the quintesential Joe R. Lansdale short story collection. ... Read more

Book Description
Edgar Award-winner Joe R. Lansdale's suspenseful mystery about forbidden love and murderous passion in 1950s East Texas is now in paperback. For young Stanley Mitchell, Jr., 1958 is quickly becoming a year of newfound joys and thrilling adventure. Beginning with the discovery of hidden love letters, Stanley learns about blues music, Sherlock Holmes, racism, and lost dreams. Through the natural course of growing up, he discovers the true nature of his father's heart; learns about love from his mother, sister, and house servant, Rosy; and becomes involved in a forbidden world that exists beneath Dewmont,Texas, like dirt swept under a beautiful carpet. But when Stanley enters a forbidden world of secrets filled with death and darkness, jealous lovers, and ghostly occurrences, he finds the real murderer of the young girl who wrote the once-secret love letters....and becomes the next target.Download Description
For young Stanley Mitchell, Jr., 1958 is quickly becoming a year of newfound joys and thrilling adventure. Beginning with the discovery of hidden love letters, and an uneasy meeting with Buster Lighthorse Smith, the Dewdrop Drive-in's elderly projectionist and former reservation policeman.Through him, Stanley learns about blues music, Sherlock Holmes, racism, and lost dreams. Through the natural course of growing up, he learns the true nature of his father's heart, the love of his mother, sister, and house servant, Rosy, and becomes involved with a forbidden world that exists beneath Dewmont, Texas like dirt and bacteria beneath a beautiful carpet. Stanley enters a forbidden world of secrets filled with death and darkness, jealous lovers and ghostly occurrences-until he discovers the real murderer of the young girl who wrote the love letters he discovered, and becomes the murderer's next target. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (28)

Young man comes of age in late 1950's
I enjoyed this novel for it's interesting plot and well-devoloped characters.

The young protagonist, his older sister, and his dog spend one 1950's Texas summer learning about other people's lives and motivations, discover the sometimes harsh truth about family and friendships, and uncover and help solve a set of murders from the town's past.

Good stuff.
If it's a coming-of-age story with supernatural elements set in the late 50s (or thereabouts) there's a good chance I'll like it, and the venerable Joe R. Lansdale's "A Fine Dark Line" novel is no exception.

I don't think the fun of this novel is about the believability of the events but its wonderful ambiance full of evocative nostalgia and old-school action. It feels delightfully pulpy in places but also has a modern, self-conscious sensibility about it.

The protagonist of the book is 13 year old Stanley Mitchell. He lives in the fictional small East Texas down of Dewmont. He lives with an older sister by a few years, Cassie, and his mother and father in a house with an outer wall that doubles as the drive-in (owned and operated by the family) projection screen. Also featured prominently are two African-American characters, the projectionist Buster Smith and the family's housekeeper and cook Rosy, and of course what story like this is complete without a loyal and heroic pet dog. The era, setting, set-up, and cast of characters all make for an intriguing start that makes it easy to get into the book.

One day Stanley finds a buried box full of letters that hint at tragedy and scandal in the town's past. This box of letters starts Stanley on the road to a series of improbable yet entertaining adventures, and a lot of growing up. Along the way Stanley also learns through his adventures and the people around him, particularly Buster, Rosy, and his sister, about pertinent life issues, like love, sex, racism, abuse, and many facets of human nature. In his adventures he comes across threats both supernatural and human.

Lansdale is a very gifted storyteller with a good sense of the era and a natural ear for the dialogue. Some it may seem over the top to modern readers who didn't live through the time, but mostly it rings true. The characters are all excellently fleshed out, the plotting is fine and the pacing superb.

To conclude, this novel is really a crowd pleaser, and I could see it appealing to mature readers of all ages and interests. I prefer it to Lansdale's earlier coming-of-age novel with supernatural touches (set in the Depression era) "The Bottoms." I recommend "A Fine Dark Line" without reservation.

What a year
What a year it was for baby boomers, 1958! That being said, again we have another fine novel that takes place over the summer of 1958, this time in eastern Texas. (My last review was Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door, which also took place over the summer of 1958; but The Girl Next Door is an entirely different kind of story, the very antithesis, if you will, of A Fine Dark Line.)
I was just a little, teensy kid in 1958, and remember the world as a bigger and less demanding place than it is now. Bigger because I was small and vulnerable and knew nothing about it, and less demanding because I was a kid--maybe. Being a child does not guarantee one a carefree childhood full of happy memories (read The Girl Next Door). But I do think America was in many ways a simpler place in the fifties, if perilous for some. And this is the beauty of A Fine Dark Line, Joe R. Lansdale's engaging story about thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchell, whose world is a conundrum of simple and dangerous; simple because it is 1958, and his parents love him; dangerous because he discovers a buried old box full of troubled but unsigned love letters that suggest something dark and terrible has happened in the not-too-distant past, and Stanley is determined to unravel the mystery, which puts him directly in the sights of death itself.
Stanley seeks out the help of one Buster Lighthouse Smith, an elderly Seminole and African American mix-blood, who runs the movie projector for the Dew Drop drive-in theater, which Stanley's father owns on the outskirts of a humid but dusty hamlet called Dewmont, Texas. (Stanley and his family live over the drive-in, in the residential quarters. It doesn't get much better than that, kids.)
Old Buster, it turns out, is a retired Indian Reservation policeman, who knows a thing or two about investigating mysteries. Buster becomes Stanley's mentor, unbeknownst to Stanley's father, and helps him unravel the dark mystery surrounding the love letters and the deaths of two young girls, though not before the quest puts Stanley, his older sister Callie, and his best pal Richard in dire peril.
This book is one of my all time favorites. I bought the hardcover edition, and kept it on my coffee table weeks after I'd finished reading it. For one thing, I wanted to keep the memory of the story alive in my head; and for another, the artwork on the cover is terrific, depicting old town Americana, vintage automobiles, an old Buick. (My parents owned a 1952 Buick. Now that was a car.) The art is nostalgic.
Mr. Lansdale writes with a convincing voice, and tells an even story with a style reminiscent of Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird. You won't be disappointed reading this book, folks--I don't care what age you are.

Shelve It Anywhere
I found this book in the mystery/thriller section.It could have been in many other sections as well:coming of age, southern literature, 1950's literature, dysfunctional families or race relations to name just a few.

The narrator, East Texan 13 year old Stanley Mitchel, Jr., getsa lifetime's worth of education during one summer vacation in the 1950's.While "investigating" a few murders and the ghosts of their victims, he learns about the birds and the bees, race relations (his mother is liberal his father uses the word "nigger"), murderers, friendship and dysfunctional families.His family, though it has warts, is a close-knit support group.Every character in the book has depth and believeability.There are no cardboard cutouts in this novel.Even the evil protagonists never quite fit into a stereotype.

The story moves at a blistering pace.The many evolving relationships move the book along as much, if not more than, the mystery component.There are some truly loveable characters here - main and tangential, and some truly nasty evil-doers as well.The mystery is really the vehicle that meshes the characters' relationships.

Mr. Lansdale is a superb writer.He captures the down to earth voice of the teen narrator extremely well.There is something of Huck Finn/Tom Sawyer in both the telling and the wide-eyed view the narrator brings to the telling of the tale.

This is an extremely fast-paced read, but there are so many subplots and social issues touched upon that it would be great reading group fodder.Highly entertaining.Highly thought-provoking.Highly recommended.

Wow!A new Lansdale fan here!
Just finished reading A Fine Dark Line and I am hooked!This was a completely engrossing, poignant yarn about a 13 year-old boy and the goings-on in his Texas town over the summer of 1958.This was a good old-fashioned murder mystery, coming-of-age, friendship/relationship tale all rolled into one.Kinda reminded me of some of Stephen King's works where a boy or boys are the main character (Stand By Me, Hearts in Atlantis, etc.).I just did not want this book to end, I loved the story and the characters so much!Can't wait to find some more Lansdale books and/or stories to read next. ... Read more

Amazon.com
"There is a certain glee in my work," says Joe R. Lansdale. "But for me, it heightens the horror." The Drive-In: A B-Movie with Blood and Popcorn and its sequel (The Drive-In 2)--both well known to Lansdale fans--are back in this welcome omnibus edition. The story is about a bunch of affectionately described characters in small-town Texas who go to a horror-movie marathon at the local drive-in. While they're watching The Toolbox Murders, a bright red meteor with a toothy smile swoops down and traps them in the drive-in for all time. Then the fun begins: endless re-runs of the same movies and fights over concession food, followed by anarchy, religion, cannibalism, bodily transformation, crucifixion, mad bikers, and a supernatural Popcorn King. It's not just silly, though; it's social commentary. The lesser (but equally surreal) sequel further explores the end-of-the-world scenario. As Lansdale himself says, "The Drive-In is quirky as hell. It's kind of a cult book, and it's not for everybody." The Drive-In was nominated for a 1989 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Trapped In The Drive In Theatre?That Sounds Pretty Cool!!!
Ths book introduces the reader to a group of four teenage boys who spend their Friday nights at the Orbit Drive In Movie Theatre. A meteor passes overhad and allcontact with the outside world is ceased. What happens next is a study of the "Group Dymnamics" of people who are thrown togther in a situation with no escape. My Socology Professor at Univesity would have loved this book!!! This book takes me back to my wild, misspentyouth at the Drive In Movie Threate where for $3.50 you could see two movies (that used to be called a "Double Feature" for all you youngpeople readingthis) and at Intermission you could risk food poisining by eating a soggy hamburgr from the Concession Stand. "Cold beer and hot nights" as Billy Joel once sang!!!

I just wanted
I just wanted to jump on the bandwagon of clapping this book on the back. Six stars!

Doesn't get much weirder
The quintessetial B-movie in fiction form. This novel is so out there, at first i didn't think i could suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy it, but once i did, what a ride. Imagine if you asked your ten year old nephew to come up with a scary story, that's about what this book boils down to, sheer nonsense, but it works beacuse Lansdale's writing is superbly funny and entertaining. ... I long for another installment in the drive in series, but for now we'll have to settle withthe comic book adaptation.

Great pulpy stuff from the Texan master...
Joe Lansdale often writes tales that requires the reader to be able to suspend disbelief and this one is a prime example. The tale follows 4 teenagers who become trapped in a drive-in by a mysterious force-field. From then on things become more and more chaotic; biker-gangs, cannibalism, religious fanatics, hippies, the popcorn king are but a few of the things you will encounter while reading this.The second novel is just as good although radically different. I don't think I will ever be able to forget the character of poppalong cassidy. It says a lot that such a wild and unconventiional book as this one is still in print after all these years. Don't miss this one; very entertaining and you'll laugh your pants off.

You'll laugh your behind off!
Really wunnerful, cheesey pulp stuff. You will laugh your behind off. Has the really outrageous Lansdale humor but some genuine scares as well. Like Shannon's novel 'Night of Beast' it is a tribute to the gory glory days of horror fiction the 70 and 80's ... Read more

Amazon.com
Like Stephen King, Joe R. Lansdale is a powerful and versatile author. He writes frequently funny, often disturbing suspense, horror, dark fantasy, science fiction, and Western fiction. And like King, he has a strong sense of place: he successfully invokes the spirit of the West and demonstrates a wonderful and distinctly Texan gift for a phrase. But don't be fooled--the resemblances are superficial. Joe R. Lansdale writes like nobody but his own self. And, unjustly, he's not yet a bestselling author.

The genre-jumping collection High Cotton is subtitled Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale, but could more rightly be called The Best of Joe R. Lansdale. If you haven't read Lansdale, this is the place to start. If you like Lansdale, you already know you want this collection, even if you already own By Bizarre Hands, which contains 7 of these 21 stories. If, however, you are of a delicate constitution or a sensitive nature, you might want to steer clear. Lansdale can be blunt, or gross, or grim, sometimes all at once.

Most of the stories in High Cotton are excellent, and some are already classics. "Night They Missed the Horror Show," a tale of bored young hell-raisers who discover dreadful new depths of trouble, is one of the great horror stories of the 20th century. The alternate-history Western "Letter from the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches" packs a lot of big (and shocking) changes into four pages. In the crime story "The Steel Valentine," a fading athlete finds himself the captive of his lover's merciless, criminal husband. In "The Phone Woman," a man discovers his horrifying true nature in a violent act. And in the screwball "Mister Weed-Eater," a man's life is turned upside-down and inside-out by his innocent attempt to help a blind groundskeeper.

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over 20 books, including the Hap Collins and Leonard Pine mystery series. He has won the American Mystery Award, the Booklist Editor's Award, five Bram Stoker Awards, the British Fantasy Award, and the International Crime Writers Award. --Cynthia Ward Book Description
This collection of Joe R. Lansdale stories represents the best of the "Lansdale" genre-a strange mixture of dark crime, even darker humor, and adventure tales. The stories are varied in setting and theme, but they are all pure Lansdale-eerie, amusing, and occasionally horrific. In "The Pit," modern gladiators square off against one another using Roman methods. An alternate-history tale called "Trains Not Taken" shows Buffalo Bill as an ambassador and Wild Bill Hickok as a clerk. Lansdale's love of large lizards and humor are evident in the stories "Godzilla's Twelve Step Program" and "Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Enter the dark world of Joe R. Lansdale
I bought this book because I wanted to read the original story from which a first season episode of Showtime's "Masters of Horror" was built around.The episode was "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road", and both the television adaptation and- I was happy to learn when I received "High Cotton" from Amazon- the original Lansdale story are top notch.In fact, the TV show was excellent largely due to its sticking extremely close to the Lansdale original.

Happily, there are many other great stories in this collection other than "Incident".As other reviewers have pointed out here, the stories range from darkly humorous to dark & gritty, the dark & gritty ones being my favorites.There are also a few good stories of the ironic and darkly poetic variety, where some poor schmuck gets an undeserved ton of bricks dropped on his life for no other reason than fate sometimes does that (I'm thinking mostly of the story involving the guy who tries to help the seemingly pathetic blind groundskeeper).The outright "funny" stories, like the one about Godzilla being in the twelve-step program (he wants to stop stomping on tourists), and the story about the inflatable dinosaur who wanted to visit Disneyland so he could meet Mickey Mouse, are also okay, but less memorable than the dark & gritty stories, which usually involve hapless characters taking a wrong turn somewhere and in short order finding themselves in the midst of one form or another of earthly hell.

Sensitive readers should note that there are many instances of racist humor, and many racist observations, throughout the book, as this or that character spouts something ignorant.In fact, there's so much of it that I started thinking that the author perhaps had a benign view of such things, or maybe even held those views himself.But, no, it ultimately becomes clear that Mr. Lansdale is just trying to accurately show how many people talk and think, and also demonstrate that such thoughts and observations can mean one of several things: that the character in question truly IS racist, or might just be a little ignorant and stupid but not truly bad.I say this because in several instances (especially in the last story), a couple of SEEMING racists meet up (after one of those wrong turns) with a group of true, hateful, monstrous racists, and... well, let's just say Mr. Lansdale makes it clear that there's a difference between dumb, ignorant spoutings and true evil.

With the exception of the occasional inflatable dinosaur and the not-as-friendly-as-it-seems housecat (and even the tales containing those offbeat elements were perfectly engaging), these are intense, dark, memorable stories, and I look forward to experiencing more Joe R. Lansdale in the near future.Just not quite yet.There's some grim stuff here, and I could use a breather.

Lansdale's Best-Of Collection
So, "High Cotton" reprints several of Lansdale's personally selected best stories.These stories, all of them except for one are also featured in his original collections "By Bizarre Hands", "Bestsellers Guaranteed", and "Writer of the Purple Rage", and are arguably the best of the stories featured in the original (and out of print) books.

Lansdale's follow-up, "Bumper Crop" collects many of the rest, but not very many stories from "Writer of the Purple Rage."If you can get a copy of "Purple Rage" get it.It has the original "Bubba Ho-Tep" novella, which is one of Lansdale's best stories and was made into the wonderful movie starring Bruce Campbell, which may be one of the most faithful adaptations of a writer's work ever put on film.

Anyway, "Booty and the Beast" is the newest (to me) story in this collection, which centers around a specific item associated with the Virgin Mary that brings doom to those who possess it.It is an entertaining story.The best stories here, however, are the ones his true fans have read before: "The Night They Missed the Horror Show" (his signature story), "The Phone Woman", and "Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back", "Not From Detroit", and many others.The stories also have introductions by Lansdale telling how they were conceived.There is also an introduction at the front of the book explaining how he came to write short stories and why he deosn't write as many anymore.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading the stories again and I hope this one stays in print for a long time, so that readers don't have to track down out of print collections to see what a fabulous writer this man is.These are the stories that made him famous, using his unique blend of humor, horror, and gritty realism to form a truly effective story.Highly Recommended!

The best short story collection EVER!
High Cotton by Joe R. Lansdale is the best short story collection I have ever read so far!The stories are funny and will make you laugh aloud -- so don't read this book in public places! Funny story: I was reading this book whilst waiting to board the plane in the airport, and I could not stop laughing!Security guards started to crowd around me -- just because I was acting in a 'peculiar manner' due to the loud laughing... so Joe R. Lansdale, it's your fault people are laughing out loud in public places whilst reading your book!Read this book and you will know what all the fuss is about.

Country Fried Horror
"High Cotton" is representative of the period when Joe Lansdale was still writing hardcore horror - and no one did it better.The stories in this collection are truly disturbing and graphic, reaching splattery heights without ever straying too far from Joe's East Texas sensibilities.Plenty of sick twists and thinly veiled stabs at racial injustice to keep our more "sophisticated" readers interested.For those of us who like down and dirty country-fried horror, you can't do any better than this collection.

The creative cotton is very high indeed
As more than one review has pointed out, a better title for this anthology might be The Best of Joe R. Lansdale - which the term High Cotton symbolizes (its farming parlance for an exceptionally good crop).Gathered between the covers are 21 terrific stories that show off Lansdale's considerable talent for spinning yarns that can be gruesome (Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back), funny (Steppin' Out, Summer 68), frightening (Incident On and Off a Mountain Road), and poignant (Not From Detroit), sometimes all at the same time (Drive-In Date).If you are easily offended by vulgar humor and salty language, not to mention microscopic examinations of the darker aspects of humanity, Lansdale will make for a very tough read.But stick with him, his stories are worth it.Highest recommendation. ... Read more