Tough Times in Texas

Joe R. Lansdale; Savage Season (Hap & Leonard 01) (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard; 2009; ISBN 978-0-307-45538-3; cover by Joe Montgomery).

Readers of this blog know that my pile of books read is pretty large but the subject matter is usually pretty small: science fiction, some fantasy, science, history, and a few others. On occasion, it is a thriller or a mystery. Joe R. Lansdale's Savage Season fits in there, but that is not the reason I picked it up. I picked it up as I've heard at least a half-dozen or more interviews with Lansdale without ever reading one of his stories. He sounds like a genuinely nice person and a very interesting one as well, and after a recent piece on his work at SF Signal, I figured it was time to give it a try.

Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are two people one would not normally associate with each other: a ex-protester and drifter and a homosexual, black Vietnam vet. In between jobs they are sucked into a deal that goes bad and gets worse, double crosses becoming triple crosses and bodies stacking up faster and faster.

Sure sounds like a typical movie-of-the-week, but there's so much more here. Lansdale has a light touch on the detail, just enough to draw you in. The dialogue, both internal and external, is excellent. And the two main characters are a hoot 'n' a holler. Ahem, excuse me. They are two very interesting people that work.

Good stuff. Time to get the next volume in the series and pass this one around to a couple of friends who are also ready to be hooked.