APRIL 2016 - AudioFile
Whodathunk that the act of rescuing an abused dog would lead Hap and Leonard down a deep rabbit hole in the eleventh book in Lansdale's popular series? Employing an East Texas drawl, narrator Christopher Grant ably gives voice to the mismatched investigators and their longtime friends and allies, along with ne'er-do-wells from around their small town of LaBorde. A search for a disagreeable old woman's absent granddaughter leads them to vintage cars, hot women and the Dixie Mafia. Grant's laconic delivery helps provide a Dust Bowl feel to this suspenseful production, right through its twist of an ending. D.E.M. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 12/21/2015
At the start of Edgar-winner Lansdale’s terrific 11th entry in his Hap and Leonard series (after 2013’s Dead Aim), Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, who are doing some freelance detective work, are on a stakeout in their car watching a house in an East Texas town when they notice a man abusing a dog. Leonard jumps out of the car, knocks the man to the ground, and takes the dog. An octogenarian neighbor, Lilly Buckner, who captures the incident on camera, tells them that she’ll go to the cops unless they help her find her missing granddaughter. What begins as a simple missing persons case soon turns into a full-scale assault against a group of elite hired assassins. But Hap and Leonard assemble their own team, including series regular Jim Bob Luke, a mercenary known only as Booger, and the beautiful but deadly Vanilla Ride. This shambolic, action-packed novel will ensnare new readers and satisfy devoted fans alike. With the Sundance Channel’s highly anticipated Hap and Leonard cable series coming in early 2016, this really could be Lansdale’s year. Agent: Danny Baror, Baror International. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
"Listening to a Joe R. Lansdale's East Texas detective yarn in the Hap Collins-and-Leonard Pine series is like hanging out with a skilled barroom raconteur. Lansdale's language dances with colorful and regular profanity as he performs a shotgun wedding between wild and ridiculous, tying it together with enough cartoonish violence and abundant wit to send you reaching for your wallet to buy the next round. . . . Altogether it's wild, funny, utterly improbable and thoroughly satisfying entertainment."—Jenni Laidman, Chicago Tribune
"Audacious . . . Honky Tonk Samurai lives up to the rich legacy of the titles that preceded it in Lansdale's Hap and Leonard series. . . . It takes a masterful writer to pull off what Lansdale accomplishes in these books, combining humor, nihilism and absurdism along with sublime plotting and character development. It reads as if it's done effortlessly, and that's no small trick."—W.K. Stratton, Dallas Morning News
"Terrific . . . This shambolic, action-packed novel will ensnare new readers and satisfy devoted fans alike. With the Sundance Channel's highly anticipated Hap and Leonard cable series coming in early 2016, this really could be Lansdale's year."—Publishers Weekly (starred boxed review)
"This is damn fine reading from Lansdale . . . Don't miss it."—Booklist (starred)
"Dubious delights... await you in Honky Tonk Samurai, the latest outing for Joe R. Lansdale's perpetual bad boys, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine.... a ton of fun."—New York Times
"The camaraderie and down-home scatology carry the day. Let's hope there's more of that good feeling to come in this terrific series."—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"Another jawdropper from the seemingly indefatigable favorite son of Nacogdoches, Texas . . . Hilarious, crude and violent, peppered through and through with unforgettable characters that leap off the page, dance around the room, and run off down the road. It doesn't get any better than this. . . . Give this man a National Medal of the Arts for his entire body of work."—Joe Hartlaub, BookReporter
Library Journal
09/01/2015
Is Hap Collins, once a tie-dyed Sixties activist, and Leonard Pine, a black, gay, Vietnam vet toughie who votes Republican, are persuaded by Lilly Buckner to look for her missing granddaughter. A Sundance TV series based on Edgar Award winner Lansdale's Hap and Leonard adventures will premiere in 2016.
APRIL 2016 - AudioFile
Whodathunk that the act of rescuing an abused dog would lead Hap and Leonard down a deep rabbit hole in the eleventh book in Lansdale's popular series? Employing an East Texas drawl, narrator Christopher Grant ably gives voice to the mismatched investigators and their longtime friends and allies, along with ne'er-do-wells from around their small town of LaBorde. A search for a disagreeable old woman's absent granddaughter leads them to vintage cars, hot women and the Dixie Mafia. Grant's laconic delivery helps provide a Dust Bowl feel to this suspenseful production, right through its twist of an ending. D.E.M. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2015-12-23
Hap and Leonard, the East Texas duo of two-fisted do-gooders, return in the ninth novel about their adventures. The pair has always functioned as an odd mixture of shamuses, handymen, guardian angels, and no-nonsense fixers. The comedy comes from the comfortable tension between this mismatched pair of best friends—Hap, the white, liberal former draft dodger always advocating for a reasonable solution, and Leonard, the black, gay, Republican ex-Marine. In this outing, Hap's squeeze, Brett, tired of being a nurse, takes over ownership of a local detective agency and puts her beau and his buddy to work. A crusty old woman engages them to track down the niece she hasn't seen in five years. The investigation begins with a luxury car dealership, which may be a front for a prostitution ring, and proceeds into some truly dark territory involving an inbred gang of backwoods assassins. The series has a temperamental connection to the comic thriller as practiced by the likes of Carl Hiaasen and the late masters Ross Thomas and Donald E. Westlake, what with the tangled multithread plots and the constant wiseass banter. But they're also a good deal bloodier, and events have the potential to turn out much worse than you feared. At times, Hap natters on too much with his bid for a pacifist solution; it's well-intentioned but disingenuous because there are bad people who need killing in these books. But the camaraderie and down-home scatology carry the day. Let's hope there's more of that good feeling to come in this terrific series.
