Joe R Lansdale
1) The bottoms
Author
Description
"It's 1933 in East Texas and the Depression lingers in the air like a slow moving storm. When a young Harry Collins and his little sister stumble across the body of a black woman who has been savagely mutilated and left to die in the bottoms of the Sabine River, their small town is instantly charged with tension. When a second body turns up, this time of a white woman, there is little Harry can do from stopping his Klan neighbors from lynching an...
Author
Pub. Date
c2003
Description
The time is the summer of 1958, the place is Dewmont, Texas. For blissfully ignorant thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchell, the end of innocence comes with his discovery of an old trove of passionate yet troubled love letters that lead him to a long-ago house fire and the tragic deaths of two very different young women. Stanley finds a guide and mentor in black, elderly Buster Lighthouse Smith, a retired Indian Reservation policeman who now runs the...
Author
Pub. Date
[2008]
Description
After a scandalous affair costs him his job in Houston, Cason Statler--Gulf War veteran and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist--returns home to the small east Texas town of Camp Rapture. Cason is a wreck. He drinks too much, he's stalking his ex-girlfriend, and he's wallowing in envy of his successful older brother. To get back on his feet, he takes a job at the local paper, and when he stumbles across his predecessor's notes on a cold case murder...
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2020.
Description
"Hap Collins looks like a good ol' boy. But even in his misspent youth, his best pal is Leonard Pine, who is black, gay, and the ultimate outsider. Inseparable friends, Hap and Leonard climb into the boxing ring, visit their families, get in bar fights, and just go fishing--all the while confronting racists, righting wrongs, and eating a whole lot of delicious food"--
6) Freezer burn
Author
Pub. Date
c1999
Description
Loner, loser, and sometime armed robber Bill Roberts finds himself in over his head when he bungles a raid on a fireworks stand and takes refuge in a cut-rate traveling freak show that is kept going by the magnetic aura of the mysterious frozen man.
7) Dead aim
Author
Series
Pub. Date
[2013].
Description
Roughneck detectives Hap Collins and Leonard Pine take on an apparently straightforward assignment -- discourage a man from harassing his estranged wife -- that is, until the husband is murdered and more bodies turn up.
Author
Pub. Date
2020
Description
Jane has lost her job at the laundry due to a ketchup package she forgot to remove from an expensive item, and her prospects look dim. To top off matters, her younger sister, who lives up north, and who Jane has problems with, is getting married and has mailed her an invitation that Jane believes was sent due to her sister not expecting her to be able to come.
A long bout of sibling rivalry makes Jane all the more determined to go, even if her car...
9) Paradise sky
Author
Formats
Description
"Young Willie is on the run, having fled his small Texas farm when an infamous local landowner murdered his father. A man named Loving takes him in and trains him in the fine arts of shooting, riding, reading, and gardening. When Loving dies, Willie re-christens himself Nat Love in tribute to his mentor, and heads west. In Deadwood, South Dakota Territory, Nat becomes a Buffalo Soldier and is befriended by Wild Bill Hickok. After winning a famous...
13) Hap and Leonard
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2016
Description
The iconic Texan crime-fighting, bigot-bashing duo meet in this companion to the breakout Hap and Leonard TV series.
As a liberal young man in East Texas, Hap Collins is discovering his passion for two-fisted justice in a redneck world. Leonard Pine-black, gay, and the ultimate outsider-is already fighting his own battles against racists and bullies. So when Hap sees Leonard demolishing an angry mob with his fists (and taunts), it's immediately clear...
14) Devil red
Author
Series
Description
"Hap Collins and Leonard Pine return in a red-hot, mayhem-fueled thriller to face a vampire cult, the Dixie Mafia, and the deadliest assassin they've ever encountered--Devil Red. When their friend Marvin asks Hap and Leonard to look into a cold-case double murder, they're more than happy to play private investigators: they like trouble, and they especially like getting paid to find it. It turns out that both of the victims were set to inherit serious...
Author
Series
Description
"Hap Collins is hitting the hard edge of a midlife crisis. By night, he's bouncing at a local club. By day, he's living by the grace of his best friend - black, gay Vietnam vet Leonard Pine - and his good woman, former Sweet Potato Queen Brett Sawyer. Hap may be down, but he's a long throw from out."--BOOK JACKET. "That's the good news. He'll need it for the bad news."--BOOK JACKET. "Brett's daughter, Tillie, who is turning tricks and taking drugs,...
Author
Pub. Date
2021.
Description
"Daniel Russell was only thirteen years old when his father tried to kill them both by driving their car into Moon Lake. Miraculously surviving the crash and growing into adulthood, Daniel returns to the site of this traumatic incident in the hopes of recovering his father's car and bones. As he attempts to finally put to rest the memories that have plagued him for years, he discovers something even more shocking among the wreckage that has ties to...
Author
Pub. Date
2023.
Description
"Charlie Garner has a bad feeling. His ex-wife, Meg, has been missing for over a week and one quick peek into her home shows all her possessions packed up in boxes. Neighbors claim she’s running from bill collectors, but Charlie suspects something more sinister is afoot. Meg was last seen working at the local donut shop, a business run by a shadow group most refer to as 'The Saucer People'; a space-age, evangelist cult who believe their compound...
Author
Pub. Date
2020.
Description
"Ed Edwards is in the used car business, a business built on adjusted odometers, extra-fine print, and the belief that "buyers better beware." Burdened by an aging, alcoholic mother constantly on his case to do something worthier of his lighter skin tone and dreaming of a brighter future for himself and his plucky little sister, Ed is ready to get out of the game. When Dave, his lazy, grease-stained boss at the eponymous dealership Smiling Dave's...