Born for Trouble: The Further Adventures of Hap and Leonard

Joe R. Lansdale is a prolific and accomplished author, as is revealed by the biographical sketch on his website. He has won the Edgar Award and many other awards, as well. His work has already been reviewed by ECD in this blog, who reviewed four of his books in the Hap and Leonard series. These two friends live in West Texas and they solve crimes. ECD reviewed the novels quite favorably. In his most recent work, Born for Trouble: The Further Adventures of Hap and Leonard, I had a very different reaction. The book has a dialogue driven story, but I found the dialogue to be too juvenile, and the crazy plot just did not catch my interest. I abandoned the story before I was halfway through. Obviously, my reaction to Lansdale was vastly different than so many. He has fashioned an impressive career as a writer, and it’s clear that Men Reading Books allows for a variety of opinions about the authors we read. Anyhow, this one does not get my recommendation.

Rumble Tumble by Joe R. Lansdale

#5 (of 19 and counting) from the high priest of East Texas mojo about best friends for life (way before BFF became all the rage), Hap and Leonard.

A twister whacked Hap’s house so bad he has to sleep on Leonard’s couch. Hap’s working as a bouncer at a local dive, instead of picking roses at the huge farm nearby his home in LaBorde, Texas. Shitty work, but it’s steady. He’s still seeing Brett and he and she are contemplating Hap moving in with her. Can you spell midlife crisis?

A ginger-haired little person and his beefed up sidekick want to meet with Brett. Says he’s got info about Brett’s estranged daughter, Tillie. For maybe $500 they tell Brett that Tillie is hooking, up in Hootie Hoot, Oklahoma. Working for a local thug in an out of the way farmhouse just outside town. Brett is also told that Tillie wants out of the life.

Bretts wants to find her daughter. That means Hap wants to help Brett find her. That means Leonard is also heading up to Hootie Hoot.And they go packing with more weaponry than is legal in most places.

Some elementary detective work and a couple well-placed inquires send this heavily armed trio to that farmhouse, but luck isn’t with them. Yeah, they shoot the place up pretty good, but no Tillie. She’s now with a biker gang in Mexico. Off they go and engage a drunk pilot to fly them in, shoot the hell out of anything that moves, grab Tillie, hide while the pilot sobers up, then fly out on fumes.

Every Hap and Leonard book (so far) features enough mojo to keep readers coming back. 19 titles so Lansdale is doing something right. Plenty of great backwoods dialogue, fists/guns/knives, cussing, spitting, killing and sex to last most authors a lifetime. But not Lansdale. Every book (so far) is will stoked with East Texas mojo.

It’s not just that the Hap and Leonard characters are so entertaining as they stumble their way through one case after another. Lansdale has the talent, to wit: winner of the British Fantasy Award, American Horror Award, Edgar Award, and 10 (that’s right, 10) Bram Stoker awards. Flaunt 'em if you got 'em, I say.

Next up is Captain Outrageous then Vanilla Ride. Hopefully this summer. 

ECD

Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale

#2 in my slow trek through the Hap and Leonard series about two low life, redneck, east Texas farm hands in the rose business. I’m three behind in my reviews, so I might be a bit briefer than usual.

Leonard’s Uncle Chester has died and left Leonard his old house that sits on the wrong side of the tracks. Old and dilapidated, to be of any value, it will need to be flipped in the worst possible way. Of course, he enlists the help of his best friend Leonard for the rehab. The house sits next door to a crack house. When he and the residents have words, Leonard, a martial arts aficionado, puts the head crack right down in a wink. Then he burns the place to the ground. And no, the police aren’t the slightest bit concerned.

During the rehab, the boys go through a floor board only to find the skeleton of a young boy. The cops are all set to blame it on poor old dead Uncle Chester. Leonard isn’t so sure. So he and Hap start doing some detecting on their own. But not before Hap, the middle aged hippie, and Florida, a local lawyer (who is a bit embarrassed to be dating a white guy) get busy. 

What they turn up will turn your stomach and appall you beyond belief. Lansdale’s unique style of prose (he flunked the course that taught politically correct storytelling, so be prepared. Not for the easily offended). When the rubber meets the road, Lansdale gets down and dirty, turning off the clever repartee to get busy.

Good reading. And I really like his style. More Hap and Leonard to come. Think I saw there are 14 books in the series.

BTW, you can find Mucho Mojo On Demand at The Sundance Channel. Really good viewing if you ask me.

East Coast Don

Savage Season by Joe R. Lansdale

As promised, after reviewing Blood and Lemonade, I managed to find and read #1 in the Hap and Leonard saga. 

This 1990 copyright is set in rural East Texas (Never been there. Wonder if that is redundant?) circa early 1980s. Hap and Leonard have been tight since their middle teens. Leonard served in Vietnam and Hap did two years at Leavenworth after refusing to pledge to protect and defend the Constitution of these United States. 

Hap had gotten married to Trudy, a serious knockout in and right after high school. She got into the 60s in a big way, but never too seriously. Hap hung around so he could chase Trudy's skirt and then managed to marry her. They marched and protested like every good flower child should, then Hap got the 'Greetings' letter all guys feared back then. He stuck with his principles and went to jail. Trudy wrote and visited, but eventually strayed and joined up with some hippie freaks headed for San Francisco leaving Hap in the joint.

But Trudy is back. After getting married a couple more times, she finds Hap and plays on his emotions to get him to join in a quick money scheme. Leonard is skeptical. "A hard dick knows no conscious." He and Leonard have been cutting roses on a corporate farm for chump change. Trudy is offering Hap (not Leonard. They don't get along too well) a cut of a lost heist of a cool $1 million.

Ten or so years ago, a bank was hit by two guys. In the getaway process, the car went through the woods, over an embankment, then into the river. Car sunk. One crook dead. Money in (mostly) sealed containers went to the bottom. The surviving crook only remembers an iron bridge near where they went in.

Trudy has teamed up with Howard (an aging hippie who also did time and shared a cell with the surviving bank robber who, BTW, ended up dying in a cafeteria dustup over the last slice of cake), Chump (fat loser in love with the romance of the 60s), and Paco (60s radical who burned half his face off when a bomb he was making detonated). They want their share of the money to go toward re-birthing the 60s. The getaway car went into the river in an area that Trudy knows that Hap is familiar with. Hap pulls Leonard in because they are friends and Leonard has some diving experience from his days in the military. Haps wants the money and Trudy's charms. Leonard's not so sure. He doesn't trust her a lick . . . plus he's gay so he wouldn't be interested in her at all.

But Hap really wants to find the money, less for 'The Cause" and more for the chance to get into Trudy's pants, which he does. Repeatedly. And they find the money. Not all of it as some has wilted away due to the ravages of time and water. But still enough to tempt everyone's resolve

Paco still has some connections and one is called Soldier and his Amazon psychopathic bitch partner, Angel. On his own, Paco made contact with Soldier with the intent of stealing all the cash and buy weapons once the money was found. Once Soldier enters the picture, the playful banter stops. Soldier has no interest in 'The Cause'. Only the money. And when it isn't just handed over, he and Angel unleash what can only be described as holy hell on this bickering set of has-been radicals.

Believe it or not, this book is marketed as a comedy. And for 75% of the book, it is outlandishly funny before turning deathly dark when Soldier and Angel don't get what they want. When those two break out the weapons, shovels, hammers/nails, Lansdale's style changes course in a heartbeat going from clever and funny to deliciously bleak and violent.

While reading Blood and Lemonade, I found out that Savage Season had been made into an eight-part series for The Sundance Channel. It's being re-run right now (April-May 2017) in prep for the Season Two's rendition of book #2, Mucho Mojo (now just beginning). One nice thing about a limited episode series, they tend to be pretty faithful to the original source material. Just can't do that with a 2 hour movie. The TV version takes a few liberties from the book, but not enough to disappoint Lansdale's fans.

Just because it takes place in east Texas, I'm not sure I'd call it Redneck Noir. JD Rhoades might take issue. If asked, I think I'll describe it as White Trash noir (even though Leonard is black).

Lucky me. The local library has Mucho Mojo.

East Coast Don

Blood and Lemonade by Joe. R. Lansdale

It's referred to as a Mosaic Novel.

That means it is more a collection of short stories by the same author about the same characters over a period of time. 

Hap Collins and Leonard Pine have been friends since high school from a burg so rural that they can't even seen the poor side of the next closest town. Some young toughs were engaging in a frequent ritual, sort of like Fight Club. Hap and Leonard meet while attending with other friends. Not a bad idea to go armed a bit. Leonard has some martial arts chops and decides he can take on that evening's top dog. Leonard hands his rifle to Hap who casually lays it across his arms. Leonard is taunted without mercy in the initial few seconds, but that changes when Leonard lays his dipshit opponent in the dust. 

The beginning of a lifelong friendship in East Texas.

On the surface, the book covers a couple slow days many years after that first fight. Hap is now married and has two kids. Leonard, on the other hand, is still single, Republican, black, and gay. No secret. Leonard let Hap know right from the start. And they stayed the closest of friends even as they opened up a quasi-PI business. 

We see Hap and Leonard headed across town for some ice cream. The sight of a boarded up store triggers a memory. They cross railroad tracks to 'the other side of town' and another story pops up. They sit on the porch of Hap's home with Hap's family and the wife, son, and daughter each prod one of the two to weave a tale from back in the day. Each chapter is its own story and need not be read in order.

Not all the stories are of Hap and Leonard. Plenty are about one or the other. These guys grew up in the East Texas of the late 50s and 60s. Rough. Racist. Crass. Cruel. Profane. Bigoted. Homophobic. Mysogynist. A place and time filled with assholes and basic jerks. The East Texas presented by Lansdale is not a place most would have wanted to drive through much less live. Trust me, you'll have no sympathy for the cretins who populate the locals towns.

But you most certainly will like Hap and Leonard (and gain some begrudging respect for Hap's dad).  The closeness of their friendship leaps across the pages with insights on why these two seeming opposites have come to carve out a friendship for life. Hate the locals, but you'll want to know more about this pair. Some of the best writing is when Hap and Leonard are (figuratively speaking) just lounging on a porch on a hot summer's night sipping some ice tea or a beer and picking at each other.

This is our first book by Lansdale (at least according to the blog's archive) who has quite a collection of titles and a ton of awards and honors to his credit. He has written over 40 books and this is the 12th in the Hap and Leonard series. Even learned that the characters have their own series on the Sundance Channel that has just started its 2nd season - I've already set my DVR and am hounding the library for earlier titles. If I were a betting man, I think it's possible that, if I can get my hands on them, I could be setting up for a reader's version of 'binge watching' of a new (to me) story series.

Last time I did that was Craig Johnson's Longmire. And that's saying something.

ECD