Savage Season: A Hap and Leonard Novel (1) [Paperback]

The author I've read the most is Stephen King at 17 books to date. Joe R. Lansdale is second with 10. Those numbers might not be impressive, but I try to read a little from a lot of different authors. Anyway, books like SAVAGE SEASON - or anything with Hap and Leonard - are why I like Lansdale's writing so much.

For those of you that don't know, SAVAGE SEASON is the novel that introduces Hap Collins, a straight white liberal ex-con, and Leonard Pine, a humorously cocky black homosexual Vietnam veteran. Hap and Leonard catch news that a hundred grand is deep down in an East Texas river. Joining the hunt are three Sixties radicals. One of these radicals is Hap's ex-wife Trudy. Hap and Leonard are soon doublecrossed by the radicals, who still haven't given up their dreams of revolution. The radicals, along with Hap and Leonard, are betrayed by one of their own to a far worse criminal.

This novel like a lot of Lansdale's work is violent, raunchy, funny, and not written to appease political correctness factions. Though the later Hap and Leonard novels like BAD CHILI and MUCHO MOJO are a bit more colorful, SAVAGE SEASON is the best place to start for the uninitiated.

LONG LIVE HAP AND LEONARD!!!

The first in an amazing series involving Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, two most unlikely heroes (though heroes they are). The author performs a powerful magic that transforms a tale with a violent twist about characters that are theoretically undesireable into something unique and hard to put down or forget. Furthermore, should you never laugh out loud when reading this and don't feel moved to buy one of the other Hap & Leonard books I'll be surprised. The story, set in East Texas, is about a treasure hunt, Hap's old girl and much more. Caveat: this is perhaps the weakest of the series - it still rates 5 stars.

SAVAGE SEASON by Joe R. Lansdale is the first novel in the "Hap Collins/Leonard Pine" series and clearly demonstrates the path to be taken by these utterly outrageous, yet definably noble characters. As the novel starts out, Hap and Leonard are doing okay. They have steady jobs in the rose fields and are taking a day off to shoot some skeet in the field behind Hap's house. Yep, everything is going pretty good until trouble walks around the corner of the house in the form of Trudy (Hap's ex-wife). Now, I don't know if Mr. Lansdale ever met my ex-girlfriend, but his description of Trudy fits her like a tight pair of spandex pants. Every time Trudy steps back into Hap's life and then leaves him again, it takes several months for him to recover. Needless to say, Leonard hates this lady for the way she treats his best friend. Anyway, Trudy has what appears to be a sweet deal for her loving ex-husband. It seems that one of her other ex-husbands, Howard, was in jail with a man who'd helped to rob a bank of one million dollars. All of the bank robber's cohorts were killed during or after the crime, and he almost bought the farm himself when he crashed his getaway boat into a submerged tree stump somewhere along the Sabine River. The money was never recovered, and the bank robber got life in prison. He gave Howard a general location of where he thought the sunken boat might be, hoping that if Howard were able to find the money, he'd share some of it with him to make his stay in prison a little easier. Since Hap knows the Sabine River like the back of his hand (well, maybe not quite that good), Trudy enlists Hap's help in locating the boat, offering him $200,000.00 for his services. Knowing Trudy as well as he does, Hap immediately gets Leonard to join in so that they can watch each other's backs. It isn't long before our East Texan duo find themselves caught in the middle of a betrayal that surprises neither one of them. The only real question is whether or not they will live long enough to see who actually ends up with the money. SAVAGE SEASON, though not as long or rich in detail as the other novels in the series, is still a fun, fast-paced read. The bantering and interaction between Hap and Leonard is what hooks you into this fantastic series. These two characters come alive in ways that other authors should take a look at. There's a lot to be learned here. Also, this novel offers a good deal of background information on both Hap and Leonard. This is stuff I didn't know because I started reading the series from the middle, then worked forward, and finally finished with the first novel, when I should've started with it to begin with. This sounds like something Hap and Leonard would do. Anyway, I enjoyed finding out why Hap had gone to prison as a young adult, how Trudy came into his life (she's referred to in a number of the other books), how he and Leonard met, and Leonard's background as a Vietnam vet. This information filled in a lot of blanks for me. For me, Mr. Lansdale's prose was smoothly written, offering a glimpse of how he would later develop into the author that he is today. All in all, this was an excellent read for me, and I was sorry to have the story end. I can't thank Joe R. Lansdale enough for this fabulous series. I only wish that he could write a "Hap/Leonard" book every year, while also doing his stand-alone novels. I hope that one of the novels in this series will eventually be done as a movie with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson in the roles of Hap and Leonard. That would be the dessert after a delicious three-course meal!!

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