Champion storyteller Joe R. Lansdale crafts tales that masterfully blend Southern Gothic horror, Western grit, detective intrigue, and absurd comedy. His narratives often explore themes of justice, morality, and survival in harsh circumstances, renowned for their raw prose and unexpected twists. Lansdale possesses a unique talent for building suspense and injecting humor, resulting in unforgettable characters and situations that immediately captivate readers.
Set in an East Texas nursing home, the story features iconic figures Elvis and JFK, portrayed by Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. They confront a redneck mummy, blending humor and horror in a unique narrative. This companion book expands on the film's quirky premise, exploring themes of aging, friendship, and the absurdity of their situation. The characters navigate their unusual challenges while delivering a mix of wit and nostalgia.
Jack Parker knows all too well how treacherous life can be. His parents did not survive a smallpox epidemic. His grandfather was murdered. Now his sister Lula has been kidnapped by a bank robber. Alongside bounty hunter Shorty, an eloquent dwarf with a chip on his shoulder, and Eustace, the grave-digging son of an ex-slave, Jack sets off to rescue Lula.
Back in the nineties a novella, The Events Concerning a Nude Fold-Out Found in a Harlequin Romance, about jobless Plebin Cook, his daughter Jasmine, and a used bookstore owner named Martha, received a Bram Stoker Award and appeared to be the start of a series. It wasn't. But now, we're taking a time machine back to the original story, involving circus dogs, mannikins and a serial killer, and we're adding a quirky, short novel, The Events Concerning Two Stabbed Clowns in a Bloody Bathtub. The novel is wilder than the original tale and answers the question: What did Plebin and the gang do next? A missing cat leads to an outrageous blackmail scheme, a sex video, a body in an out of the way cemetery, a sexy mortician, clown orgies, bathtub stabbings, and a missing child. But Plebin, Jasmine and Martha are on the job, because they not only have a used bookstore to run, they own a private eye agency, BOOKS AND BULLETS, and they are clown deep into a twisty investigation. An investigation that soon becomes a race against time to rescue a child before she is deprived of air and a wicked vengeance is completed. Step up and step out with the gang. But watch the face paint and the blood puddles, and keep your back to the wall. Things are about to go sideways in the best way possible for a reader craving mystery, suspense, and unexpected thrills
Mucho Mojo is the basis for the second season of the new Sundance TV series Hap and Leonard and has been adapted into a full color graphic novel by Finnish illustrator Jussi Piironen.Hap and Leonard return in this incredible, mad-dash thriller, loaded with crack addicts, a serial killer, and a body count.Leonard is still nursing the injuries he sustained in the duo's last wild undertaking when he learns that his Uncle Chester has passed. Hap is of course going to be there for his best friend, and when the two are cleaning up Uncle Chester's dilapidated house, they uncover a dark little secret beneath the house's rotting floor boards-- a small skeleton buried in a trunk. Hap wants to call the police. Leonard, being a black man in east Texas, persuades him this is not a good idea, and together they set out to clear Chester's name on their own. The only things standing in their way is a houseful of felons, a vicious killer, and possibly themselves.
Joe R. Lansdale, celebrated for his contributions to horror and "splatterpunk," significantly shaped the Weird Western genre through works like The Magic Wagon. His storytelling blends elements of the supernatural with Western themes, creating a unique narrative style that has captivated readers for over three decades. Lansdale's influence continues to resonate in contemporary literature, marking him as a pivotal figure in the evolution of this genre.
Exploring the metaphor of life as a theatrical performance, the narrative delves into the complexities of existence and the unseen forces that influence our actions. It raises profound questions about free will and the nature of control, inviting readers to reflect on their roles in the grand scheme of life. The imagery of puppetry underscores themes of manipulation and fate, suggesting that understanding who orchestrates our lives may be more unsettling than comforting.
The Great Depression, East Texas. The woods are thick, the rivers wild, the weather ripe with tornadoes, and the Crane family, like most families in that neck of the woods, are eking out a thin living. When young Harry Crane discovers a mutilated body bound to a tree with barbed wire in the river bottoms, the underbelly of East Texas is exposed. Whites fear a renegade Negro. Blacks fear a vengeful massacre, or, if the killer is white, that the law will let him slip through their fingers. Harry believes the murderer is the Goat Man, an East Texas monster of legend who lurks beneath the swing bridge on the Sabine River, like the Billy Goat Gruff. Harry and his sister have actually seen the Goat Man, or something much like him, in his nocturnal haunts. As the bodies mount up, an elderly black man is lynched, both blacks and whites are terrorised, and Harry¿s father ¿ the local law ¿ and grandmother investigate, searching for a killer who may be a lot closer than they think. Not only a novel of riveting suspense, The Bottoms is a novel of a unique place and time, and shows the protean talents of Joe R Lansdale setting off in a new direction.
When Pete Jones, the local constable, is shot dead, his widow, Sunset, finds herself in his job, investigating a series of brutal murders. Most of the townsfolk object to her wearing Pete's gun and badge, some because this is the 1930s and they think a woman's place is in the home, others because it was Sunset who blew off Pete's head in the first place. As much a modern western as a murder mystery, SUNSET & SAWDUST features a cast of outlandish characters -- gun-men, hobos, sheriffs, hookers, migrants and coloured families struggling to make living under the malevolent eyes of the Ku Klux Klan. Sunset's investigation leads her and her friends into a labyrinth of greed, corruption, and unspeakable malice. Nothing and no-one are quite what they seem in Texas.
The author of The Two-Bear Mambo serves up a gritty, bawdy, action-packed Texas thriller involving a black, gay protagonist, a chili chef, a femme fatale, a rabid squirrel, a tornado, and several corpses. Reprint.
All three Drive-In novels from Joe R. Lansdale in one paperback! Includes: THE DRIVE-IN: A B-MOVIE WITH BLOOD AND POPCORN, MADE IN TEXAS THE DRIVE-IN 2: NOT JUST ONE OF THEM SEQUELS THE DRIVE-IN 3: THE BUS TOUR