From Amazon.com
Hap Collins is in a LaBorde, Texas, hospital recuperating from an attack by a rabid squirrel and wondering why his best friend, Leonard Pine, hasn't been by to visit. Turns out that Leonard was upset enough about his boyfriend Raul leaving him for another guy that he went down to the biker bar this guy hangs out at and beats him with a broom handle. When the biker turns up dead later that night, it doesn't take long to guess who the primary suspect is--especially with Leonard nowhere to be found.
After Hap checks himself out of the hospital and finds Leonard hiding in his bed, the fourth novel in this series kicks into high gear--or what passes for high gear in Lansdale's deceptively laid-back storytelling style. Pretty soon, they've stumbled onto a conspiracy involving gaybasher pornography, and Leonard's ready to exact some vigilante justice over Hap's protestations: "There's few people think a roach exterminator is a murderer. I'm not talkin' about beatin' up and rapin' innocent people who are lookin' for love in all the wrong places. I'm talkin' about stampin' out a plague, man.... I've heard you rave about the horrors of the child sex trade in Thailand, the poor, the plight of blacks and women and gays, and all the stuff you gripe about, but me, I'm gonna do somethin'."
Add in a budding romance between Hap and Brett Sawyer, the nurse who tells him on their first date about how she set her abusive husband on fire--which impresses him much more than it scares him--and you've got the makings of another classic Lansdale thriller. --Ron Hogan
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Leonard Pine is distraught. His lover, Raul, has left him for a biker. Leonard's pal and sleuthing partner, Hap Collins, wants to be there for his buddy, but before Hap can help, the biker is found headless. Leonard is quickly dismissed as a suspect, but then Raul's body is discovered, extensively tortured. Clearly, the LaBorde, Texas, police department has no interest in solving what is viewed only as a homosexual killing. Leonard can't let it go. He and Hap descend into a vortex of police corruption, gay bashing for video profit, and a truly bizarre business scam, all masterminded by the local chili king. Lansdale is in top form with this latest Collins-Pine caper. Where else in the mystery world could one find a plot that hinges on the big money to be made in recycled restaurant grease--and, as an aside, a critique of the
Gilligan's Island reunion movie. Lansdale is politically correct one minute and politically incorrect the next, simultaneously funny and tragic, and wildly profane yet invariably humane. In his unique way, he reveals the human condition--our darkest secrets and our proudest moments, all within the unlikely confines of an East Texas adventure featuring the two scruffiest protagonists in modern crime fiction.
Wes Lukowsky
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
