Things Get Ugly: The Best Crime Fiction of Joe R. Lansdale
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Edgar Award winner and bestselling author Joe R. Lansdale (the Hap and Leonard series), one of America's most essential crime writers, heads back to the dangerous woods of East Texas. In his first crime career-retrospective, including previously uncollected work, Lansdale shows exactly why critics continue to compare him to Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, Flannery O’Connor, and William Faulkner.
“Pulpy, blackly humorous, compulsively readable, and somehow both wildly surreal and down-to-earth. Lansdale is a national f*****g treasure.”
—Christa Faust, author of Money Shot
In the 1950s, a young small-town projectionist mixes it up with a violent gang. When Mr. Bear is not alerting us to the dangers of forest fires, he lives a life of debauchery and murder. A brother and sister travel to Oklahoma to recover the dead body of their uncle. A lonely man engages in dubious acts while pining for his rubber duckie.
In this collection of nineteen unforgettable crime tales, Joe R. Lansdale brings his legendary mojo and gritty, dark humor to harrowing heists, revenge, homicide, and mayhem. No matter how they begin, things are bound to get ugly—and fast.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This mixed-bag collection of 19 stories from Edgar winner Lansdale (A Fine Dark Line) features violent tales set mostly in East Texas. The highlight is "The Shadows, Kith and Kin," an atmospheric and inspired attempt to get into the head of Charles Whitman, who, in 1966, climbed to the top of a tower at the University of Texas and gunned down random passersby. Lansdale uses the present tense to create a sense of immediacy as Whitman prepares for his murderous rampage, fueled by visions of faceless, shadowy figures. "Incident on and off a Mountain Rod," about a woman's desperate efforts to escape a psychopath, is also memorable, despite a familiar plotline. Elsewhere, innovative premises are poorly executed; "Mr. Bear," which features a drunken, anthropomorphized version of Smokey the bear, is a muddle that doesn't work as satire or horror. Lansdale fans may find enough to enjoy here, but first-timers would be better served to start with the novels.