A well-muscled martial arts expert, Leonard’s tough as alligator hide, which comes in handy when you’re also black and gay in East Texas. Hap’s partner, Leonard Pine, is no slouch himself. Narrator Hap Collins is a good ol’ boy who divides his time between odd jobs in LaBorde, Texas, and doing the horizontal two-step with girlfriend Brett Sawyer, an RN who’s tough enough to send Nurse Jackie into hiding. “Vanilla Ride” is the seventh book in the series featuring this mismatched pair of crime fighters. His Hap and Leonard mysteries (including “Savage Season” and “Two-Bear Mambo”) are written in a violent yet humorous style reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen as much as Andrew Vachss, both of whom are more recognizable names to mystery and crime readers. The notice from critics has been impressive - garnering Lansdale praise for prose “as tasty as a well-cured piece of beef jerky” (the Houston Chronicle) and awards as varied as multiple Bram Stokers for horror fiction and an Edgar for the moody, stand-alone mystery “The Bottoms.”Įven so, the East Texas native is not easy to peg. Over a span of 30 years, he’s written well over a dozen mystery, suspense, western and sci-fi novels and short stories with detours into graphic novels and horror. Lansdale is one of the more versatile writers in America. Like gold standard writers Elmore Leonard and the late Donald Westlake, Joe R.
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