Joe R. Lansdale: Devil Red

It's been a while, and I'm still looking for guest reviewers/bloggers! If you have a favorite novel you'd like to review or just write about, send me an email or message on Facebook. If you're a gothic romance writer or gothic novelist, let's set up an interview or a guest post. :)

Now, on to the review of Joe R. Lansdale's Devil Red.

Let me begin by saying I love Hap and Leonard. I feel like I know them and can picture them both in my mind easily, though I've never met a guy quite like Leonard. Hap-- actually, I've probably met a few since I'm from Alabama, and these are good ole Texas boys.

With that said, I have a feeling this series is reaching its end. The first 3/4 of the novel was bland. Hap and Leonard have been hired to find the killer who marks his victims with a red devil. The other novels in the series, Mucho Mojo, for example made me laugh so hard I thought I would die. This one had a few laughs, but it was lacking in those as well as snappy dialogue. The girlfriend, Brett, is bland. I miss Florida Grange, and the whole thing seemed to coast for a long time. Hap's angst over killing folks felt contrived and drawn out where it had felt visceral in past novels.



Then suddenly, bam! There is the climax of the novel. It came as a surprise and felt uneven since things had been very flat line to that point. I teared up a bit in that section, and I was glad to see the resolution, but I didn't feel the suspense I usually do in these novels or the catharsis. I knew what was going to happen, and I thought "meh." Some of these Hap and Leonard novels have left me in tears, feeling woebegone and in existential crisis.

In short, this one lacks the magic of the series. I'm thinking perhaps it's near the end. It's been a good run if so. Have you read it? What do you think?

I look forward to future novels by Lansdale. Maybe it's just time for another series or some good stand alones.

I give Devil Red 3 stars. It's good enough to read, but it's not the best in the series.


Rating: *** Stars

Joe R. Lansdale: The Two-Bear Mambo

This novel is the next one after Mucho Mojo in the Hap and Leonard series, and yes, the title refers to what you think it does. Think bears and Discovery Channel or Animal Planet. This one was published in 1995. And again, I love the cover. A little tombstone is just visible beside the tree.

Hap and Leonard are having fun setting fire to the neighborhood crack house on Christmas Eve when they find out that Hap's ex-lover, lawyer and wannabe reporter the lovely African American Florida Grange, is missing. Her boyfriend and their acquaintance, Hanson, begs them to do him a favor in return for not putting them in jail. He wants them to go to the still racist, backwoods circa 1960 town of Grovetown in East Texas to look for her.

They do, and it all goes from there to a town with deep, dark secrets that are better unknown. Backwoods politics, mean men in gray suits, and fights break out as they search for Florida.

Plot: 4/5 [The plot moves swiftly and with the usual humor. In fact, I was reading passages of this to my husband and good friend, and they thought they were hilarious, too.]

Characterization: 4/5 [Hap and Leonard are as likable and "real" as ever, and the minor characters are drawn well. No other author has pegged the Southern character sketch like Lansdale. He can breathe life into a character in three sentences and make readers remember that character for the whole novel. If you like your characters unique, he's your author.]

Atmosphere/spooky elements: 4/5 [Just the thought of the mission that Hap and Leonard are given made my skin crawl, for starters. Lansdale also does a lovely job of describing the landscape that looks like a "war zone" due to all the paper mill ravaging of old oaks or the skeletal pines (like bones) that remain to be seen on a drive through Texas (44). The Southern Gothic elements-- graves, bones, decaying remains, floods and acts of nature, scary rednecks-- are strong in this one, but so is the raunchy humor.]

Literary elements: 4/5 [Yes, Lansdale writes like a dream, and he has a keen eye for what ails society, the ills of political correctness and for seeing human nature rightly.]


Rating: 4 stars    ****

I recommend this one. If you like Hap and Leonard, you will want to read them all anyway. If you need a laugh, too, and you are Southern and have a sense of humor, I guarantee you that any of these novels will make you guffaw. They will also make you think about the questions of life and death.

Joe R. Lansdale: Mucho Mojo

Last week, a reader commented on a love for Southern Gothic Novels, so I thought I'd review one I read recently. Mucho Mojo is the second in the much acclaimed Hap Collins and Leonard Pine series by Texas author, Joe R. Lansdale. I picked it up in the library after having read a standalone by Lansdale and going "wow." I later read that many fans think this novel is the best in the series. I guess I'll just have to read others to find out.

Hap is a white trash sort of guy from Texas who is down on his luck. His friend, Leonard, is a flashy dressing, homosexual black man. They make an unlikely pair  as friends; in their spare time, they run into mysteries and trouble. When the novel opens, Leonard has inherited his Uncle Chester's house and some money. He finds out he has inherited more when he makes a gruesome find in the house. Hap and Leonard must solve a mystery and clear Chester's name. The title of the novel refers to a bottle tree that is in Uncle Chester's yard; this tree is supposed to keep evil away. It's a spooky little detail that makes the novel stand out.

This little novel is suspenseful, creepy, funny, politically incorrect, philosophical, and intelligent. Lansdale's characters are not afraid to take on race, religion, and sexuality. I found myself laughing out loud often, but Lansdale has the gift of making you laugh and then making you get mighty serious with the turn of the page. There is a complicated, smart love story in the novel as well. The ending of this one is haunting, and it's just about perfect all around. I picked up another in the series at a thrift store recently, and I will be reading it soon.

Characterization: 5/5 [I love both Hap and Leonard; in fact, I like them so much that I can't figure out who I would want to play them, but I'd love to see the movie(s). Other characters are well drawn, too.]

Plot: 4/5 [The plot moves pretty steadily, and I guess I want to say that no one writes quite like Joe R. Lansdale-- at least no author I know of yet. He's good at plot twists and at not choosing the happy option all the time. His plots mirror life in that way.]

Atmosphere/spooky elements: 4/5 [The bottle tree is spooky as are some of the collected items that Uncle Chester leaves behind, not to mention the skeletons that make their appearance in the novel. This one had me thinking about the dark side of humanity by the time it was done.]

Literary? 4/5 [This novel is smartly written, but it doesn't get high and mighty. Lansdale tackles race, sexism, religion, and other issues with a deft touch and often with bawdy, adult language. His style is decidedly, gloriously Southern.]

Romance? Yes... but it's not all happy go lucky.


Rating: 4+ stars    ****+

I highly recommend this one. If you want to fall in love with two new characters and with a novel series that has a Southern Gothic feel to it, try these out. Don't you just love that cover with the orange, yellow, and black and the Gothic script?