Joe R. Lansdale
All Books By Joe R. Lansdale
A Fine Dark Line
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 8 hours 15 minutes
- Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish date: April 04, 2023
- Language: English
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5(1 ratings)
Thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchel Jr. spends most of his time helping his family run the town’s drive-in movie theater, reading ten-cent comics, and playing with his dog Nub.
Life in East Texas circa 1958 is not very exciting until Stanley discovers a stash of old, crumbling love letters in a pile of burnt rubble behind the drive-in. As Stanley reads through the letters, he finds himself in the middle of a town mystery and discovering the secrets of his sleepy town.
Stanley, with the help of the old projectionist and his older sister, uncovers the identities of the people who penned the letters and sheds light on a shocking twenty-year-old murder plot. As Stanley unearths more and more truths, he realizes the injustices of life in East Texas in the 1950s including class, race, gender, and the cruelty of unrequited love. Stanley feels betrayed by his family and his town as he takes a closer look at the dark truth and refuses to allow himself to succumb to the darkness.
Contains mature themes.
Cold in July
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 6 hours 31 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: August 08, 2014
- Language: English
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3.95(1623 ratings)
From the Edgar Award-winning author of the Hap and Leonard mysteries comes a shocking crime thriller to chill the even the warmest summer’s night. By turns vivid, raw, and darkly comedic, this mystery classic inspired the 2014 major motion picture Cold in July, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter) Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice). Richard Dane has killed a man. He cannot unhear the firing of the gun or unsee the blood on his living room wall. But everybody in the small town of LaBorde, Texas knows Dane acted in self defense. Everybody except Ben Russel, the ex-con father of the small-time criminal who invaded Dane’s home. When Russel comes looking for revenge against Dane’s family, the two are unexpectedly drawn into a conspiracy that conceals the vilest of crimes. Surrounded by police corruption, mafia deception, and underworld brutality, Dane, Russel, and eccentric PI Jim Bob Luke have discovered a game they may not survive.
... Read moreDeadman’s Road
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 8 hours 18 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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3.83(730 ratings)
Deadwood meets Cthulhu in this wild and profane Western romp featuring zombies, werewolves, evil spirits, and one pissed-off gunslinging preacher.
The Wild West has never seen the likes of the Reverend Jebidiah Mercer, a hard man wielding a burning Bible in the battle between God and the devil, in an endless struggle he’s not sure he cares who wins. With its five stories laced with fast-paced action, nonstop humor, and spine-tingling horror, Deadman’s Road is your ride to hell, in which a vengeful shaman curses a town by conjuring a seemingly unstoppable army of the undead; an ill-advised shortcut leads to a bees’ nest of terror; a man stands condemned, not for murdering his wife but for raising the Lovecraftian horror that killed her; a woman is attacked by werewolves and left for dead in a ghost town; and a mining camp faces off with a horde of cannibalistic fiends.
... Read moreDriving to Geronimo’s Grave and Other Stories
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 8 hours 54 minutes
- Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish date: March 12, 2019
- Language: English
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4.27(234 ratings)
From the Dusty Great Depression to the far future, to the wild west, to the era of big fin automobiles, soda shops and double features, as well as dark journey on an icy ocean full of ravenous sharks and a fantastic shipwreck that leads its survivors into a nightmarish Lovecraftian world of monsters and mystery, Joe R. Lansdale returns with a pack of stories for your consumption and enjoyment.
There’s even killer machines, a big ole grizzly bear, and entertaining story notes.
Joe R. Lansdale has been writing novels and stories, as well as screenplays and comics, for over forty-five years, and this is his latest concoction, encompassing stories informed by a variety of genres, but not quite comfortably fitting into any of them.
The reason is simple.
Joe R. Lansdale is his own genre.
Edge of Dark Water
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Angele Masters
- Length: 9 hours 29 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: March 27, 2012
- Language: English
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3.94(2503 ratings)
May Lynn was once a pretty girl who dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star. Now she’s dead, her body dredged up from the Sabine River.
Sue Ellen, May Lynn’s strong-willed teenage friend, sets out to dig up May Lynn’s body, burn it to ash, and take those ashes to Hollywood to spread around. If May Lynn can’t become a star, then at least her ashes will end up in the land of her dreams.
Along with her friends Terry and Jinx and her alcoholic mother, Sue Ellen steals a raft and heads downriver to carry May Lynn’s remains to Hollywood.
Only problem is, Sue Ellen has some stolen money that her enemies will do anything to get back. And what looks like a prime opportunity to escape from a worthless life will instead lead to disastrous consequences. In the end, Sue Ellen will learn a harsh lesson on just how hard growing up can really be.
Fender Lizards
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Kasey Lansdale
- Length: 5 hours 17 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2017
- Language: English
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3.93(379 ratings)
Dot waitresses on roller skates at the Dairy Bob, doesn’t care for smoking, at least partly on account of her dad having never returned from a cigarette run, and carries on the family tradition of philosophizing. Life hasn’t done her any favors in her seventeen years so far. But if there was ever a heroine built for turning things upside down and seeing what shakes out, it’s Dot. Determined to find out who she is and why she’s the way she is, an opportunity presents itself when her heretofore-unknown uncle suddenly moves his camper into the front yard.
As in his classic novels The Bottoms and The Magic Wagon, Lansdale instills place with character and character with place. Here is an overlooked world and a cast of real folks that prove unforgettable, all rendered in one of American fiction’s most authentic voices.
... Read moreFreezer Burn
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 6 hours 17 minutes
- Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish date: March 28, 2023
- Language: English
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3.71(1325 ratings)
After a botched holdup, Bill, a not-too-bright bungler who has been living with his dead mother in order to collect her social security checks, hides out in a traveling freak show populated by a bizarre assortment of bearded ladies, hermaphrodites, dogmen, and a mysterious frozen man.
Contains mature themes.
Honky Tonk Samurai
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Christopher Ryan Grant
- Length: 10 hours 13 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: February 02, 2016
- Language: English
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3.94(1425 ratings)
The story starts simply enough when Hap, a former 60s activist and self-proclaimed white trash rebel, and Leonard, a tough black, gay Vietnam vet and Republican with an addiction to Dr. Pepper, are working a freelance surveillance job in East Texas. The uneventful stakeout is coming to an end when the pair witness a man abusing his dog. Leonard takes matters into his own fists, and now the bruised dog abuser wants to press charges.
One week later, a woman named Lilly Buckner drops by their new PI office with a proposition: find her missing granddaughter, or she’ll turn in a video of Leonard beating the dog abuser. The pair agrees to take on the cold case and soon discover that the used car dealership where her granddaughter worked is actually a front for a prostitution ring. What began as a missing-person case becomes one of blackmail and murder.
Filled with Lansdale’s trademark whip-smart dialogue, relentless pacing, and unorthodox characters, Honky Tonk Samurai is a rambunctious thrill ride by one hell of a writer.
It Washed Up
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Ramon de Ocampo
- Length: 6 minutes
- Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
- Publish date: February 11, 2020
- Language: English
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2.91(56 ratings)
“It Washed Up” is a short horror story by Joe R. Lansdale, one of 35 entries in the audio horror anthology Come Join Us by the Fire.
A creature emerges from the sea. It will not return alone.
Come Join Us by the Fire, edited by Theresa DeLucci, is an audio-only horror anthology of 35 short stories from Nightfire Books, a horror imprint of Tor Books. The collection showcases the breadth of talent writing in the horror genre today, with contributions from a wide range of bestselling genre luminaries including China Mieville, Chuck Wendig, Richard Kadrey, and Victor LaValle; Shirley Jackson Award winners Paul Tremblay, Priya Sharma, and Sam J. Miller; Nebula Award winners Brooke Bolander, Alyssa Wong, Kij Johnson; and many, many more.
... Read moreJackrabbit Smile
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Christopher Ryan Grant
- Length: 5 hours 52 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: March 27, 2018
- Language: English
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3.99(764 ratings)
Hap and Leonard are an unlikely pair-Hap, a self-proclaimed white trash rebel, and Leonard, a tough-as-nails black gay Vietnam vet and Republican-but they’re the closest friend either of them has in the world. Hap is celebrating his wedding to his longtime girlfriend, Brett (who is also Hap and Leonard’s boss), when their backyard barbecue is interrupted by a couple of Pentecostal white supremacists. They’re not too happy to see Leonard, and no one is happy to see them, but they have a problem and only Hap and Leonard will take the case.
Judith Mulhaney’s daughter, Jackrabbit, has been missing for five years. Well, she’s been missing from them for five years, but she’s been missing from everybody, including the local no-goods who ran with her, for a few months. Despite their misgivings about Judith and her son, Hap and Leonard take the case. It isn’t long until they find themselves mixed up in a revivalist cult that believes Jesus will return flanked by an army of lizard-men — solving a murder to boot.
With Lansdale’s trademark humor, whip-smart dialogue, and plenty of ass-kicking adventures to be had, you won’t want to miss Hap and Leonard’s latest.
Jane Goes North
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Kasey Lansdale
- Length: 4 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
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3.69(169 ratings)
Jane has lost her job at the laundry due to a ketchup package she forgot to remove from an expensive item, and her prospects look dim. To top off matters, her younger sister, who lives up north, and who Jane has problems with, is getting married and has mailed her an invitation that Jane believes was sent due to her sister not expecting her to be able to come.
A long bout of sibling rivalry makes Jane all the more determined to go, even if her car has gone to hell. To make the journey, Jane forms an uncomfortable alliance with a grumpy, one-eyed, weight-lifting lady named Henry, who may or may not abandon her along the way, and has plans to see a doctor Henry claims can renew her sight. Add past memories of a sexual dalliance with a drunk preacher in the back lot of the church across from her house; an infamous naked run along a creek bank; failed marriages, including an ex-husband that has a bit of goat ardor; and with a shoe full of money; Jane and Henry hit the road. They meet up with modern slavers, panty snatchers, disabled thieves with a sense of grandeur, a country singer named Cheryl who is on the downhill slide, and a quest for the world’s greatest toaster that can toast four slices of bread all at once, or in sequence, and has a clock on it. It’s one incredible quest consisting of rides in cow trailers, a stolen car, and a convertible, a pirate outfit for children, and what will become a unique friendship.
... Read moreLeather Maiden
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 9 hours 45 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: January 09, 2009
- Language: English
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3.82(1189 ratings)
Edgar Award winner Joe R. Lansdale writes outrageous fiction that rockets along with violent spikes of action and intense humor. Gulf War vet Cason Statler has moved back to his East Texas hometown after losing his job as a reporter in Houston (sleeping with both the boss’ wife and 30-year-old stepdaughter has a way of ruining career prospects). But when his new gig has him investigating a local girl’s disappearance, Cason opens a can of worms that might get him killed.
... Read moreMoon Lake
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 8 hours 51 minutes
- Publisher: Hörbuch München von RBmedia Verlag
- Publish date: January 05, 2023
- Language: German
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3.79(1922 ratings)
Daniel Russell war erst 13 Jahre alt, als sein Vater versuchte, sich selbst und seinen Sohn zu töten. Er fuhr von einer Brücke direkt in die Fluten des Moon Lake in Ost-Texas. Doch wie durch ein Wunder überlebte der Junge.
Jahre später, nachdem er neue Informationen über sein Kindheitstrauma erhalten hat, kehrt Daniel zurück an den Moon Lake. Er hofft, das Auto und die Knochen seines Vaters bergen zu können.
Aber tief verborgen unter dem glitzernden Wasser des Sees entdeckt er etwas Schockierendes, das mit einer Reihe ungewöhnlicher Morde in Verbindung steht …
Moon Lake
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Jason Culp
- Length: 9 hours 17 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: June 22, 2021
- Language: English
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3.8(1293 ratings)
From an Edgar award-winning author comes the gripping and unexpected tale of a lost town and the dark secrets that lie beneath the glittering waters of an East Texas lake.
Daniel Russell was only thirteen years old when his father tried to kill them both by driving their car into Moon Lake. Miraculously surviving the crash–and growing into adulthood–Daniel returns to the site of this traumatic incident in the hopes of recovering his father’s car and bones. As he attempts to finally put to rest the memories that have plagued him for years, he discovers something even more shocking among the wreckage that has ties to a twisted web of dark deeds, old grudges, and strange murders.As Daniel diligently follows where the mysterious trail of vengeance leads, he unveils the heroic revelation at its core.
... Read more
More Better Deals
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Brad Sanders
- Length: 5 hours 59 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: July 21, 2020
- Language: English
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3.75(698 ratings)
Paradise Sky
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Brad Sanders
- Length: 14 hours 8 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: June 16, 2015
- Language: English
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4.29(1599 ratings)
Young Willie is on the run, having fled his small Texas farm when an infamous local landowner murdered his father. A man named Loving takes him in and trains him in the fine arts of shooting, riding, reading, and gardening. When Loving dies, Willie re-christens himself Nat Love in tribute to his mentor, and heads west.
In Deadwood, South Dakota Territory, Nat becomes a Buffalo Soldier and is befriended by Wild Bill Hickok. After winning a famous shooting match, Nat’s peerless marksmanship and charm earn him the nickname Deadwood Dick, as well as a beautiful woman. But the hellhounds are still on his trail, and they brutally attack Nat Love’s love. Pursuing the men who have driven his wife mad, Nat heads south for a final, deadly showdown against those who would strip him of his home, his love, his freedom, and his life.
Rusty Puppy
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Christopher Ryan Grant
- Length: 6 hours 53 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: February 21, 2017
- Language: English
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4.02(899 ratings)
While Hap, a former 60s activist and self-proclaimed white trash rebel, is recovering from a life-threatening stab wound, Louise Elton comes into Hap and Leonard’s PI office to tell him that the police have killed her son, Jamar.
Months earlier, a bully cop pulled over and sexually harassed Jamar’s sister, Charm. The officer followed Charm over the course of the next couple of months, leading Jamar to videotape and take notes on the cop and his partner. The next thing Louise hears, Jamar got in a fight and is killed in the projects by local hoods. It doesn’t add up: he was a straight A student, destined for better things, until he began to ask too many questions about the racist police force.
Leonard, a tough black gay Vietnam vet and Republican, joins Hap in the investigation, and they stumble upon the racial divides that have shaped their Eastern Texas town. But if anyone can navigate these pitfalls and bring the killers to justice, it’s Hap and Leonard.
Filled with Lansdale’s trademark whip-smart dialogue, colorful characters, and relentless pacing, Rusty Puppy is Joe Lansdale at his page-turning best.
Sunset and Sawdust
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 5 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
- Publish date: January 01, 2004
- Language: English
He has been called “hilarious . . . refreshing . . . a terrifically gifted storyteller with a sharp country-boy wit” (Washington Post Book World), and praised for his “folklorist’s eye for telling detail and [his] front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace” (New York Times Book Review). Now, Joe R. Landsdale gives us a fast-moving, electrifying new novel: a murder mystery set in a steamy backwater of Depression-era East Texas.
It begins with an explosion: Sunset Jones kills her husband with a bullet to the brain. Never mind that he was raping her. Pete Jones was constable of the small sawmill town of Camp Rapture (“Camp Rupture” to the local blacks), where no woman, least of all Pete’s, refuses her husband what he wants.
So most everyone is surprised and angry when, thanks to the unexpected understanding of her mother-in-law—three-quarter owner of the mill—Sunset is named the new constable. And they’re even more surprised when she dares to take the job seriously: beginning an investigation into the murder of a woman and an unborn baby whose oil-drenched bodies are discovered buried on land belonging to the only black landowner in town. Yet no one is more surprised than Sunset herself when the murders lead her—through a labyrinth of greed, corruption, and unspeakable malice—not only to the shocking conclusion of the case, but to a well of inner strength she never knew she had.
Landsdale brings the thick backwoods and swamps of East Texas vividly to life, and he paints a powerfully evocative picture of a time when Jim Crow and the Klan ruled virtually unopposed, when the oil boom was rolling into and over Texas, when any woman who didn’t know her place was considered a threat and a target. In Sunset, he gives us a woman who defies all expectations, wrestling a different place for herself with spirit and spit, cunning and courage. And in Sunset and Sawdust he gives us a wildly energetic novel—galvanizing from first to last.
... Read moreSunset and Sawdust
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Deborah Marlowe
- Length: 13 hours 6 minutes
- Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
- Publish date: January 01, 2003
- Language: English
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3.92(2208 ratings)
He has been called “hilarious . . . refreshing . . . a terrifically gifted storyteller with a sharp country-boy wit” (Washington Post Book World), and praised for his “folklorist’s eye for telling detail and [his] front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace” (New York Times Book Review). Now, Joe R. Landsdale gives us a fast-moving, electrifying new novel: a murder mystery set in a steamy backwater of Depression-era East Texas.
It begins with an explosion: Sunset Jones kills her husband with a bullet to the brain. Never mind that he was raping her. Pete Jones was constable of the small sawmill town of Camp Rapture (“Camp Rupture” to the local blacks), where no woman, least of all Pete’s, refuses her husband what he wants.
So most everyone is surprised and angry when, thanks to the unexpected understanding of her mother-in-law—three-quarter owner of the mill—Sunset is named the new constable. And they’re even more surprised when she dares to take the job seriously: beginning an investigation into the murder of a woman and an unborn baby whose oil-drenched bodies are discovered buried on land belonging to the only black landowner in town. Yet no one is more surprised than Sunset herself when the murders lead her—through a labyrinth of greed, corruption, and unspeakable malice—not only to the shocking conclusion of the case, but to a well of inner strength she never knew she had.
Landsdale brings the thick backwoods and swamps of East Texas vividly to life, and he paints a powerfully evocative picture of a time when Jim Crow and the Klan ruled virtually unopposed, when the oil boom was rolling into and over Texas, when any woman who didn’t know her place was considered a threat and a target. In Sunset, he gives us a woman who defies all expectations, wrestling a different place for herself with spirit and spit, cunning and courage. And in Sunset and Sawdust he gives us a wildly energetic novel—galvanizing from first to last.
... Read moreThe Big Blow
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 2 hours 58 minutes
- Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish date: March 28, 2023
- Language: English
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4.04(484 ratings)
Peculiar weather settles over a bustling Texas sea port, a city made prosperous off the cotton trade and thick with racial inequality. The sky above Galveston, Texas, darkens to the sickly green of a healing bruise, the sea turns black, and the inhabitants of the city have no idea the force of the hammer about to drop on them.
The wild wind blows boxer John McBride into town, a white prize fighter with seemingly superhuman fury and skill. As black boxer Jack L’il Arthur Johnson prepares to fight this fierce opponent, the storm closes in. If he can survive the ring and the vicious undercurrents of the Jim Crow south, L’il Arthur will still have to fight his way through the storm winds, the rising flood waters, and the violent night.
On September 8, 1900, a hurricane ripped apart Galveston, Texas, killing nearly 8,000 people and nearly obliterating the town. Lansdale’s story brings dimension to many who lost their lives that day, and a few who survived.
Contains mature themes.
The Bottoms
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 9 hours 57 minutes
- Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish date: January 17, 2023
- Language: English
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4.18(8065 ratings)
This Edgar Award winner is “equal parts morality tale and page-turning thriller” (Denver Post)-classic American storytelling in its truest, darkest, and most affecting form, with echoes of William Faulkner and Harper Lee.
It’s 1933 in East Texas and the Depression lingers in the air like a slow-moving storm. When a young Harry Collins and his little sister stumble across the body of a black woman who has been savagely mutilated and left to die in the bottoms of the Sabine River, their small town is instantly charged with tension. When a second body turns up, this time of a white woman, there is little Harry can do from stopping his Klan neighbors from lynching an innocent black man. Together with his younger sister, Harry sets out to discover who the real killer is, and to do so they will search for a truth that resides far deeper than any river or skin color.
Contains mature themes.
The Donut Legion
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 7 hours 21 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: March 21, 2023
- Language: English
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3.97(287 ratings)
Edgar award-winning author Joe R. Lansdale beams a light on an East Texas town held in the grip of conspiracy.
Charlie Garner has a bad feeling. His ex-wife, Meg, has been missing for over a week and one quick peek into her home shows all her possessions packed up in boxes. Neighbors claim she’s running from bill collectors, but Charlie suspects something more sinister is afoot. Meg was last seen working at the local donut shop, a business run by a shadow group most refer to as ‘The Saucer People’; a space-age, evangelist cult who believe their compound to be the site of an extraterrestrial Second Coming.
Along with his brother, Felix, and beautiful, randy journalist Amelia “Scrappy” Moon, Charlie uncovers strange and frightening details about the compound (read: a massive, doomsday storehouse of weapons, a leashed chimpanzee!) When the body of their key informer is found dead with his arms ripped out of their sockets, Charlie knows he’s in danger but remains dogged in his quest to rescue Meg.
Brimming with colorful characters and Lansdale’s characteristic bounce, this rollicking crime novel examines the insidious rise of fringe groups and those under their sway with black comedy and glints of pathos.
The Elephant of Surprise
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Christopher Ryan Grant
- Length: 4 hours 47 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: March 19, 2019
- Language: English
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3.88(713 ratings)
Hap and Leonard are an unlikely pair–Hap, a self-proclaimed white trash rebel, and Leonard–a tough-as-nails Black, gay, Vietnam vet and Republican–but they’re the closest friend either of them has in the world.
The Nightrunners
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Length: 6 hours 7 minutes
- Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish date: January 24, 2023
- Language: English
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3.76(1330 ratings)
In the field of country noir-the dark side of rural and small-town America-Lansdale staked his claim to East Texas with The Nightrunners. A ’66 Chevy bears down on the countryside, with a carful of vicious teenagers and evil of Biblical proportions, in this terrifying morality tale of sex and violence.
Contains mature themes.
The Thicket
- By: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrator: Will Collyer
- Length: 10 hours 20 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: September 10, 2013
- Language: English
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4.14(2217 ratings)
Jack Parker thought he’d already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic sweeping turn-of-the-century East Texas — orphaning him and his younger sister, Lula.
Then catastrophe strikes on the way to their uncle’s farm, when a traveling group of bank-robbing bandits murder Jack’s grandfather and kidnap his sister. With no elders left for miles, Jack must grow up fast and enlist a band of heroes the likes of which has never been seen if his sister stands any chance at survival. But the best he can come up with is a charismatic, bounty-hunting dwarf named Shorty, a grave-digging son of an ex-slave named Eustace, and a street-smart woman-for-hire named Jimmie Sue who’s come into some very intimate knowledge about the bandits (and a few members of Jack’s extended family to boot).
In the throes of being civilized, East Texas is still a wild, feral place. Oil wells spurt liquid money from the ground. But as Jack’s about to find out, blood and redemption rule supreme.
In The Thicket, award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in a rip-roaring adventure equal parts True Grit and Stand by Me – – the perfect introduction to an acclaimed writer whose work has been called “as funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm — or Mark Twain” (New York Times Book Review).