Review copies of the Edgar winner Joe R. Lansdale’s  THE BIG BOOK OF HAP AND LEONARD are now available via NETGALLEY.

These copies are only for reviewers and librarians. For more details, visit NETGALLEY.

And while you are there, check out other Tachyon titles for review for review on NETGALLEY.

No one currently working the field demonstrates more convincingly and joyously the deep affinity between pulp fiction and the American tall tale.”
—Kirkus

SPECIAL E-BOOK OMNIBUS EDITION: Contains all the material from the trade paperback HAP AND LEONARD and the e-book-only edition of HAP AND LEONARD RIDE AGAIN.

“An essential Hap and Leonard addition”
—The Novel Pursuit

The boys are back, and just in time for Season 3 series finale of the Hap and Leonard, starring Michael K. Williams (The Wire) and James Purefoy (Altered Carbon).

Hap Collins looks like a good ’ol boy, but his lefty politics don’t match. His buddy, Vietnam veteran Leonard Pine, is even more complicated: black, conservative, gay … and an occasional arsonist.

“This collection is crime/pulp fiction at its best and most captivating.”
—Risingshadow

With Hap and Leonard on the job, small-time crooks all on the way on up to the Dixie Mafia are extremely nervous.

Everyone’s favorite ass-kicking Texan duo are further immortalized in this expanded collection of tall tales, slick nonfiction, and four full-length novellas.

[STARRED REVIEW] “Last seen in the novel Honky Tonk Samurai, Lansdale’s incomparable East Texas crime fighting duo show their chops in this remarkable story collection. Hap Collins, a straight, white liberal, and Leonard Pine, a black, gay conservative, have long challenged genre conventions, and the friendship and camaraderie between these two hard cases as they suit up against injustice and hypocrisy is at the heart of these seven tales. In the novella “Hyenas,” the boys help save a client’s impressionable younger brother from the clutches of a group of psychotic robbers. “Dead Aim” finds the pair taking on the Dixie Mafia after a seemingly straightforward cheating spouse case gets a tad more complicated. “Not Our Kind” is set against the backdrop of the late 1960s, when a teenage Hap first befriends Leonard and faces the racism and intolerance of his peers up close.”
—Publishers Weekly

Editor Richard Klaw explains the genesis of THE BIG BOOK OF HAP AND LEONARD.

Joe R. Lansdale can be a pain in the ass. That’s why this book exists.

HAP AND LEONARD collected all of the not-so-dynamic duo’s previously published shorter adventures (circa 2016) plus the original story “Not Our Kind,” basically everything that’s not a novel, in one handsome volume. This being the 21st century and all, an ebook edition was required. And therein lies the problem.

Seems Joe had promised the digital rights to the novellas “Hyenas,” “Dead Aim,” and the short story “The Boy Who Became Invisible” to another publisher than Tachyon. So we could wait until 2018 for the ebook, when the rights reverted, or figure out something else. We opted for the latter.

The ebook HAP AND LEONARD RIDES AGAIN contained all of the material present in HAP AND LEONARD except for the trio of stories mentioned above. Since the remaining material scarcely made for a book, we added the original short story “The Oak and the Pond,” the Marvin Hanson novella “A Bone Dead Sadness,” Joe’s comic script adaptation of “The Boy Who Became Invisible,” my interview with Joe, and an original remembrance about the creation of Hap and Leonard by Bill Crider, who sadly died while we were putting together THE BIG BOOK OF HAP AND LEONARD.

When Joe offered us the rights to “Hyenas,” “Dead Aim,” and “The Boy Who Became Invisible,” we decided it was best to combine the two editions into this one super—dare I say big—book you hold in your virtual hands.

Sometimes a pain in the ass leads to gold. Not sure if this qualifies as such but if not, it’s damn close.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Foreword to THE BIG BOOK OF HAP AND LEONARD by editor Richard Klaw

• An Appreciation of Joe R. Lansdale by Michael Koryta
• Joe R. Lansdale, Hap and Leonard, and Me by Bill Crider

• Hyenas
• Veil’s Visit
• Death by Chili
• Dead Aim
• A Bone Dead Sadness
• The Boy Who Became Invisible (story)
• The Boy Who Became Invisible (comic book script)
• Not Our Kind
• The Oak and the Pond
• Bent Twig

• Joe R. Lansdale Interviews Hap Collins and Leonard Pine
• Interview with Joe R. Lansdale
• The Care and Feeding and Raising Up of Hap and Leonard

For more info on THE BIG BOOK OF HAP AND LEONARD, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story