HAP AND LEONARD is one gem of a collection
The reviews for Joe R. Lansdale’s collection featuring everyone’s favorite dysfunctional duo HAP AND LEONARD keep coming in.
From KIRKUS:
As Michael Koryta notes in his celebratory introduction, salt-and-pepper heroes have been done to death, but Lansdale (Paradise Sky, 2015, etc.) keeps his duo fresh through their dialogue, which manages to sound both relaxed and inventive. The pair talk themselves through three long stories and four short ones. All the long ones are keepers.
The plotting throughout is no more than routine, but the uncovering of layer after layer of double crosses allows Hap and Leonard numerous opportunities to discourse about everything and nothing as Lansdale spins out his trademark redneck similes, the most pungent since Raymond Chandler.
<snip>
No one currently working the field demonstrates more convincingly and joyously the deep affinity between pulp fiction and the American tall tale.
James Purefoy and Michael K. Williams as the titular characters in SundanceTV’s HAP AND LEONARD
Just in time for their move to TV here’s one gem of a collection. It has all the hard to find short stories featuring Hap & Leonard, the most enjoyable mismatched pair of private eyes since Spenser and Hawk.
Hap, blue-collar everyman who happens to be an amazing shooter and his Vietnam veteran, black and gay friend Leonard are presented here in short stories of varying length. They range from novella’s to short flashbacks, vignettes and interviews. All are as fun as they are dark, gritty and violent. Think a seventies action movie if made by Seth Rogen.
<snip>
The Hap & Leonard series is always very enjoyable. While these stories might lack some of the substance of the novels they are highly entertaining and sometimes disturbing.
For more info on HAP AND LEONARD, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover by Elizabeth Story