Hap and Leonard Books In Publication Order
- Savage Season (1990)
- Mucho Mojo (1994)
- The Two-Bear Mambo (1995)
- Bad Chili (1997)
- Rumble Tumble (1998)
- Captains Outrageous (2001)
- Vanilla Ride (2009)
- Devil Red (2010)
- Hyenas (2011)
- Dead Aim (2012)
- Honky Tonk Samurai (2015)
- Briar Patch Boogie (2016)
- Miracles Ain’t What They Used to Be (2016)
- Coco Butternut (2017)
- Rusty Puppy (2017)
- Cold Cotton (2017)
- Jackrabbit Smile (2018)
- The Elephant of Surprise (2019)
- Born for Trouble (2022)
Hap & Leonard Collections In Publication Order
- Veil’s Visit (1999)
- Hap and Leonard (2016)
- Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade (2017)
Hap and Leonard Book Covers
Hap & Leonard Collections Book Covers
Hap & Leonard Books Overview
Savage Season
A rip roaring, high octane, Texas sized thriller, featuring two friends, one vixen, a crew of washed up radicals, loads of money, and bloody mayhem. Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are best friends, yet they couldn t be more different. Hap is an East Texas white boy with a weakness for Texas women. Leonard is a black, gay Vietnam vet. Together, they stir up more commotion than a fire storm. But that’s just the way they like it. So when as ex flame of Hap s returns promising a huge score, Hap lets Leonard in on the scam, and that s when things get interesting. Chockful of action and laughs, Savage Season is the masterpiece of dark suspense that introduced Hap and Leonard to the thriller scene. It hasn t been the same since. ‘The most consistently original and originally visceral writer the great state of Texas or any other state for that matter has seen in a score of flashpoint summers.’ The Austin Chronicle ‘Lansdale has an unsettling sensibility. Be thankful he crafts such wild tall tales.’ Chicago Sun Times
Mucho Mojo
Cleaning out the house of their recently deceased uncle, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine discover a child’s skeleton wrapped up in po*rnographic magazines and are forced to confront the ugly possibilities while searching for answers. NYT. /Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content In the second installment of the Hap Collins Leonard Pine series, Leonard is still recuperating from the injuries he suffered in the first book Savage Season when he learns that his Uncle Chester has died. Hap agrees to stay with Leonard and help clean out the rundown house that he’s inherited; when they find a small skeleton buried under the floor, it’s up to them to prove that Chester wasn’t responsible for a string of child murders by finding the real killer.
Lansdale slowly develops the relationship between his two protagonists as they banter with each other throughout their pursuit of the killers. Mucho Mojo also introduces two other characters, LaBorde Police Department members Lieutenant Marvin Hanson and his sidekick, Charlie, who serve as ongoing sources of friction and, when it’s most needed, support.
The Two-Bear Mambo
Full of savage humor, heart stopping suspense, and a cast of characters so tough they could chew the bumper off a pickup truck, The Two Bear Mambo is classic country noir. In this rollicking, rollercoaster ride of a novel, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine take a break from their day jobs to search for Florida Grange, Leonard’s drop dead gorgeous lawyer and Hap s former lover, who has vanished in the Klan infested East Texas town of Grovetown. Before she disappeared, Florida was digging up some dirt behind the mysterious jailhouse death of a legendary bluesman s son, who was in possession of some priceless merchandise. To Hap and Leonard, something don t smell right. With murder on their minds, Hap and Leonard set out to investigate as only they know how…
chaotically. Lansdale has a zest for storytelling and a gimlet eye for detail. Entertainment Weekly Lansdale s prose, both laconic and sarcastic, is so thick with slang and regional accent that it s as tasty as a well cured piece of beef jerky. Readers will want to savor each bite. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Bad Chili
With his trademark knack for gut busting laughter and head splitting action, Joe R. Lansdale serves up a bubbling cauldron of murder and mayhem that only he could create.
Hap Collins has just returned home from a gig working on an off shore oil rig. With a new perspective on life, Hap wants to change the way he’s living, and shoot the straight and narrow. That is until the man who stole Leonard Pine s boyfriend turns up headless in a ditch and Leonard gets fingered for the murder. Hap vows to clear Leonard s name, but things only get more complicated when Leonard s ex shows up dead. To the police it is just a matter of gay biker infighting, but to Hap and Leonard murder is always serious business, and these hit a little too close to home.
Colorful…
. Lunatic…
. Like a twister Lansdale s book has a lot of energy. Chicago Tribune
One of publishing s best kept secrets. Dallas Morning News
Rumble Tumble
Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are in for an action packed adventure when they cross paths with a towering Pentecostal preacher, a midget with a giant attitude, and a gang of bikers turned soldiers of fortune. Even though a midlife crisis just crashed into Hap Collins like a runaway pickup, he’s still got his job, he knows his best friend, Leonard Pine, will always be there for him, and, of course, he s got his main squeeze, Brett Sawyer. Things hit a new low, however, when Brett s daughter, Tillie, who s been walking on the wrong side of the law, suddenly stands in need of a rescue. It won t be easy it never is but nothing is going to stop Hap and Leonard as they hit the road destined for Hootie Hoot, Oklahoma, to shake things up. And with Hap and Leonard at the wheel, this promises to be a wild ride. Hilarious…
. Addictively scarfable…
. Two thumbs up, and pardon the barbecue smears. Texas Monthly Joe Lansdale is master at taking a simple everyday event and turning reality upside down. Mystery Scene
Captains Outrageous
Hap Collins and Leonard Pine find mucho trouble, this time in Mexico, when they come face to face with a nudist mobster, his seven foot strong arm, an octogenarian knife touting fisherman, and, somehow, an armadillo. When Hap Collins saves the life of his employer’s daughter, he is rewarded with a Caribbean cruise, and he convinces his best friend, Leonard Pine, to come along. However, when the cruise sails on without them, stranding them in Playa del Carmen with nothing but their misfortune and Leonard s ridiculous new hat, the two quickly find themselves drawn into a vicious web of sordid violence. When they return to East Texas, they find that trouble has beaten them back, and when trouble s around it doesn t take long for Hap and Leonard to find it. A storyteller in the great American tradition of Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain. The Boston Globe Lansdale reaches the reader on a gut level…
. A terrific writer. Ellery Queen s Mystery Magazine
Vanilla Ride
‘There’s no bullsh*it in a Joe Lansdale book. There’s everything a good story needs, and nothing it doesn’t.
Joe pulls up the truck, says, ‘Get in the back, we’re going for a ride.’You know it might get a little
scary and it might get a little crazy, but you get in, because you know in the end, it’s going to
be a fun ride.’ Christopher Moore, New York Times Bestselling Author of A Dirty Job and Fool
In this Texas sized thriller, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine best friends, freelance troublemakers, and tough guys with good intentions find themselves in the crosshairs of the Dixie Mafia.
Hap is an East Texas smart mouth with a weakness for southern women. Leonard is a gay, black veteran pining for a lost love. They re not the makings of your typical dynamic duo, but never underestimate the power of a shared affinity for stirring up trouble and causing mayhem. When an old friend asks Leonard to rescue his daughter from an abusive, no good drug dealer, he gladly agrees and, of course, invites Hap along for the fun. Even though the dealer may be lowly, he is on the bottom rung of the Dixie Mafia, and when Hap and Leonard come calling, the Mafia feels a little payback is in order. Cars crash, shotguns blast, and people die, but Hap and Leonard come out on top. Unfortunately for them, now they re facing not only jail time but also the legendary and lethal Vanilla Ride, who is still out to claim the price on their heads. Full of twists and turns, gunfire and gaffes, this hilarious, rip roaring novel will have readers turning the pages faster than a Texas tornado.
Devil Red
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 money, and one of them ran with a vampire cult. The more closely Hap and Leonard look over the crime scene photos, the more they see, including the image of a red devil’s head painted on a tree. A little research turns up a slew of murders with that same fiendish signature. And if that s not enough, Leonard has taken to wearing a deerstalker cap…
Will this be the case that finally sends Hap over the edge?Full up with Lansdale s trademark whip smart dialogue, relentless pacing, and unorthodox to say the least characters Devil Red is one rambunctious thrill ride by one hell of a writer.
Hyenas
Hyenas marks the always welcome return of Joe R. Lansdale’s most indelible fictional creations: Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. Once again, the embattled but resilient duo find themselves enmeshed in a web of danger, duplicity, and escalating mayhem. The result is a tightly compressed novella that is at once harrowing, hilarious, and utterly impossible to put down. The story begins with a barroom brawl that is both brutal and oddly comic. The ensuing drama encompas*ses abduction, betrayal, robbery, and murder, ending with a lethal confrontation in an East Texas pasture. Along the way, readers are treated to moments of raucous, casually profane humor and to scenes of vivid, crisply described violence, all related in that unmistakable Lansdale voice. An essential addition to an already imposing body of work, Hyenas shows us both the author and his signature characters at their inimitable best. It doesn’t get better than this. Hyenas also includes the bonus Hap Collins short story, ‘The Boy Who Became Invisible’.
Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade
Audio CD, Brilliance Audio