Books in series
#1
Savage Season
1990
Here comes Trudy back into Hap's life, thirty-six but looking ten years younger, with long blonde hair and legs that begin under her chin, and the kind of walk that'll make a man run his car off the road. Here comes trouble, says Leonard, and he's right. She was always trouble, but she had this laugh when she was happy in bed that could win Hap over every time. Trudy has a proposition: an easy two hundred thousand dollars, tax-free. It's just a simple matter of digging it up ...Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, white and black, straight and gay, are the unlikeliest duo in crime fiction. Savage Season is their debut.
#2
Mucho Mojo
1994
Inheriting one hundred thousand dollars and a small hiccup of a house in a dilapidated district is not so bad, and Uncle Chester made a nice gift of it to his nephew Leonard... though the clean-up is intensive, the floor is Rotten, and the neighbors are something from a nightmare.
It is one thing to renovate a house to sell it. It is another to cut down the walls and risk discovering hidden skeletons...
#3
The Two-Bear Mambo
1995
A bitingly brilliant novel of comedy and crime from a master at the height of his powers.
#4
Bad Chili
1997
Hap and Leonard is now a Sundance TV series.
With his trademark knack for gut-busting laughter and head-splitting action, Joe R. Lansdale serves up a bubbling cauldron of murder and mayhem that only he could create. Hap Collins has just returned home from a gig working on an off shore oil rig. With a new perspective on life, Hap wants to change the way he's living, and shoot the straight and narrow. That is until the man who stole Leonard Pine's boyfriend turns up headless in a ditch and Leonard gets fingered for the murder. Hap vows to clear Leonard's name, but things only get more complicated when Leonard's ex shows up dead. To the police it is just a matter of gay-biker infighting, but to Hap and Leonard murder is always serious business, and these hit a little to close to home.
#5
Rumble Tumble
1998
Hap Collins puts his midlife crisis on hold to join his best buddy, Leonard Pine, and his girlfriend, Brett, on a mission to rescue Brett's troubled daughter from the dangerous inhabitants of Hootie Hoot, Oklahoma
#6
Captains Outrageous
2001
Phoenix, Great Britain Trade Paperback with 319 pages. - Colourful, profane and with injection of black humour that borders on bad taste, this is another high-octane race through the Texas badlands, with a rising body count and thrills galore. A rewarding romp'. Guardian
#6.5
Veil's Visit
A Taste of Hap and Leonard
1999
Introductions by both authors.
Veil's Visit, an original short story co-authored by Joe R. Lansdale and Andrew Vachss.
Death by Chili, a new Hap & Leonard short story by Joe R. Lansdale
Excerpts and story notes from the Hap & Leonard novels
Captains Outrageous, a novella length standalone excerpt from the Hap & Leonard novel.
And Lansdale "interviews" Hap & Leonard
Limited to 150 signed hardbacks and 1000 signed trade paperbacks. Published by Subterranean Press, 1999.
#7
Vanilla Ride
2009
"There's no bullshit in a Joe Lansdale book. There's everything a good story needs, and nothing it doesn't.
Joe pulls up the truck, says, 'Get in the back, we're going for a ride.'You know it might get a little
scary and it might get a little crazy, but you get in, because you know in the end, it's going to
be a fun ride."—Christopher Moore, New York Times Bestselling Author of A Dirty Job and Fool
In this Texas-sized thriller, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine—best friends, freelance troublemakers, and tough guys with good intentions—find themselves in the crosshairs of the Dixie Mafia.
Hap is an East Texas smart mouth with a weakness for southern women. Leonard is a gay, black veteran pining for a lost love. They’re not the makings of your typical dynamic duo, but never underestimate the power of a shared affinity for stirring up trouble and causing mayhem. When an old friend asks Leonard to rescue his daughter from an abusive, no-good drug dealer, he gladly agrees and, of course, invites Hap along for the fun. Even though the dealer may be lowly, he is on the bottom rung of the Dixie Mafia, and when Hap and Leonard come calling, the Mafia feels a little payback is in order. Cars crash, shotguns blast, and people die, but Hap and Leonard come out on top. Unfortunately for them, now they’re facing not only jail time but also the legendary—and lethal—Vanilla Ride, who is still out to claim the price on their heads. Full of twists and turns, gunfire and gaffes, this hilarious, rip-roaring novel will have readers turning the pages faster than a Texas tornado.
#8
Devil Red
2010
Hap Collins and Leonard Pine return in a red-hot, mayhem-fueled thriller to face a vampire cult, the Dixie Mafia, and the deadliest assassin they’ve ever encountered—Devil Red.
When their friend Marvin asks Hap and Leonard to look into a cold-case double homicide, they’re more than happy to play private investigators: they like trouble, and they especially like getting paid to find it. It turns out that both of the victims were set to inherit serious money, and one of them ran with a vampire cult. The more closely Hap and Leonard look over the crime-scene photos, the more they see, including the image of a red devil’s head painted on a tree. A little research turns up a slew of murders with that same fiendish signature. And if that’s not enough, Leonard has taken to wearing a deerstalker cap . . . Will this be the case that finally sends Hap over the edge?
Full up with Lansdale’s trademark—whip-smart dialogue, relentless pacing, and unorthodox-to-say-the-least characters—Devil Red is one rambunctious thrill ride by one hell of a writer.
#8.5
Hyenas
2011
Hyenas marks the always-welcome return of Joe R. Lansdale’s most indelible fictional creations: Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. Once again, the embattled but resilient duo find themselves enmeshed in a web of danger, duplicity, and escalating mayhem. The result is a tightly compressed novella that is at once harrowing, hilarious, and utterly impossible to put down.
The story begins with a barroom brawl that is both brutal and oddly comic. The ensuing drama encompasses abduction, betrayal, robbery, and murder, ending with a lethal confrontation in an East Texas pasture. Along the way, readers are treated to moments of raucous, casually profane humor and to scenes of vivid, crisply described violence, all related in that unmistakable Lansdale voice. An essential addition to an already imposing body of work, Hyenas shows us both the author and his signature characters at their inimitable best. It doesn’t get better than this.
Hyenas also includes the bonus Hap Collins short story, “The Boy Who Became Invisible”.
#8.6
Dead Aim
2012
Dead Aim marks the always welcome return of Joe R. Lansdale’s most enduring fictional creations: Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. The result is a spare, beautifully crafted novella in which Lansdale’s unique voice and inimitable narrative gifts are on full—and generous—display.
The story begins simply enough when the two agree to provide protection for a woman harassed by her violent, soon-to-be-ex husband. But, as readers of this series will already know, events in the lives of Hap and Leonard rarely stay simple for long. When a protracted stakeout ends in a lethal shooting and a pair of moldering corpses turn up in an otherwise deserted trailer, the nature of this “routine” assignment changes dramatically. The ensuing investigation unearths a complex web of lies, duplicity, and hidden agendas that leads from an upscale Texas law firm to the world of organized crime, culminating in the kind of explosive, anything-can-happen confrontation that only Joe Lansdale could create. Violent, profane, and often raucously funny, Dead Aim is a tautly written, hugely entertaining thriller and a triumph of the storyteller’s art.
#9
Honky Tonk Samurai
2015
Only Hap and Leonard would catch a cold case with hot cars, hot women, and ugly skinheads.
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.
#9.2
Briar Patch Boogie
2016
Hap and Leonard may never go fishing again.
A rustic get-away turns into a life or death dash through an East Texas cypress swamp.
They encounter a victim of camo clad hunters that classify sport in a whole different way.
A head start is as fair as it gets as Hap and Leonard are thrown in the woods and must run for their lives. Their wise-cracks may be sharper than the hunter's arrows, but not as deadly.
#9.6
Hap and Leonard Ride Again
2016
Soon to be a 2016 SundanceTV miniseries starring Michael K. Williams (The Wire), James Purefoy (Rome), and Christina Hendricks (Mad Men).
Hap and Leonard don’t fit the profile. Hap Collins looks like a good ’ol boy, but his liberal politics don’t match. After a number of failed careers, Hap has discovered that what he’s best at: kicking ass. Vietnam veteran Leonard Pine is even more complicated: black, conservative, gay . . . and an occasional arsonist.
Join in on Hap and Leonard's gritty Texan crime-fighting adventures, including four pieces of bonus material only found in this edition. The Dixie Mafia and small-time crooks alike had best be extremely nervous.
#9.7
Hoodoo Harry
2016
A long-lost bookmobile opens a wild new chapter in the lives of dysfunctional Texas detectives Hap and Leonard—stars of the hit Sundance TV series.
Hap Collins is a straight, white, liberal, blue-collar tough guy. Leonard Pine is a gay, black, Republican combat veteran. Together, they’re the truest Lone Stars living in America’s most independently minded state. Best friends who’ve shared a succession of low-wage odd jobs that have gotten them into even odder situations dealing with lowlifes, now the duo delivers their own brand of ass-kicking justice as private investigators.
In this brand-new story, a day’s fishing lands Hap and Leonard their biggest catch ever: the Rolling Literature bookmobile. A pillar of rural African American communities in East Texas, the renovated school bus vanished fifteen years ago—along with its driver, Harriet Hoodalay, aka Hoodoo Harry—reappearing just in time to crash Leonard’s pickup into a creek. Behind the wheel was a twelve-year-old boy who didn’t survive the accident.
The kid was clearly running scared, but who was he running from and how did he end up in the driver’s seat of the missing bookmobile? The first solid lead in a case that started more than a decade earlier with Hoodoo Harry, this mystery of a small town’s dark and disturbing past will take all of Hap and Leonard’s wits—and fists—to solve.
Known for his “zest for storytelling and a gimlet eye for detail,” multiple award–winning author Joe R. Lansdale brings his rapid-fire dialogue, no-holds-barred action, and gut-busting humor to this original Hap and Leonard novella (Entertainment Weekly).
The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.
#9.8
Coco Butternut
2017
Coco Butternut marks the always-welcome return of Joe R. Lansdale’s dysfunctional Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. As usual, wherever Hap and Leonard go, trouble seems to already be there, awaiting their arrival. And in the case of this twisty, hilarious, and heartfelt new novella, Lansdale sends his heroes to Oak Rest mortuary and cemetery to grapple with the living and the dead—both canine and human.
When the mummified corpse of a beloved prize-winning dachshund named Coco Butternut is stolen from her final resting place, Hap and Leonard are hired by the owner to get her body back. The job is they must simply exchange a bag full of cash for the missing pooch’s mummy. But they can feel something’s not on the up-and-up, and how right they are.
With assistance from Hap’s significant other, Brett, and his daughter, Chance, Hap and Leonard are soon embroiled in a gripping mystery tied to the dark secrets lurking beneath the hallowed ground of Oak Rest cemetery. In his inimitable style, and at the top of his game, here Lansdale gives us a highly enjoyable new entry in the ongoing adventures of Hap and Leonard. Fans of Hap and Leonard’s, whether of their fictional outings or the Sundance TV show (or more likely, both), won’t want to miss this treat.
#10
Rusty Puppy
2017
Hap and Leonard investigate a racially motivated murder that threatens to tear apart their East Texas town.
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.
#11.5
Cold Cotton
2017
Hap and Leonard is now a Sundance TV series starring James Purefoy and Michael Kenneth Williams.
Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are up to their ears in trouble once more, when a kinky, psychotherapist client and her household end up dead with a crazy, nymphomaniac niece as the main suspect.
Hap is facing his own inner crisis, wavering between a shrink and a little blue pill, while his lover Brett and his best friend Leonard speculate on a colorful variety of causes and cures. When he opts for neither, ignoring his doctor's advice to call a shrink, she calls him instead and the team is off to the races, facing off with a wide array of odd relationships, crazed florists and murder. Action like only Joe R. Lansdale and Hap & Leonard can provide.
#12
Jackrabbit Smile
2018
Meet Hap and Leonard, the unlikely detective duo now on screen in the highly praised series starring James Purefoy, Michael K. Williams and Christina Hendricks.
'Reading Joe R. Lansdale is like listening to a favorite uncle who just happens to be a fabulous storyteller' Dean Koontz
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, 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 they want Hap and Leonard to solve it.
Judith Mulhaney's daughter, Jackrabbit, has been missing for five years. That is, she's been missing from her family for five years, but she's been missing from everybody, including the local no-goods they knew ran with her, for a few months. Despite their misgivings, Hap and Leonard take the case. It isn't long until they find themselves mixed up in a revivalist cult believing that Jesus will return flanked by an army of lizard-men, and solving a murder to boot.
With Lansdale's trademark humour, sharp dialogue, and plenty of righteous beatdowns, you won't want to miss Hap and Leonard's latest.
#13
The Elephant of Surprise
2019
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.
After years of crime-solving companionship, something's changed: Hap, recently married to their P.I. boss, Brett, is now a family man. Amidst the worst flood East Texas has seen in years, the two run across a woman who's had her tongue nearly cut out, pursued by a heavily armed pair of goons. Though she can't talk much, on account of the tongue, it turns out the girl survived a mob hit, and the boss has come to clean up the mess.
On a chase that blows even the East Texas swampgrass back, Hap and Leonard must save the girl, and vanquish her foes, before the foes get them first. With a new case to solve, and a brand-new challenge to their relationship, will Hap and Leonard's friendship survive? Will Hap and Leonard survive?
The Elephant of Surprise is rich with Lansdale's trademark humor, whip-smart dialogue, and plenty of ass-kicking adventures.
#13
Sugar on the Bones
2024
PI Duo Hap & Leonard investigate the untimely death of a woman whose family stood much to gain from her passing. It's a holy mess of a case for the "perpetual bad boy" (New York Times) sleuths in this beloved series.
Minnie Polson is dead. Burned to a crisp in a fire so big and bad it had to be deliberate. The only thing worse is that Hap and Leonard could have prevented it. Maybe. Minnie had a feeling she was being targeted, shaken down by some shadowy force. However, when she’d solicited Hap & Leonard, all it took was one off color joke to turn her sour and she’d called them off the investigation.
Wracked with a guilty conscience, the two PIs—along with Hap’s fleet-footed wife, Brett—tuck in to the case.
As they look closer, they dredge up troublesome for one, Minnie’s daughter, Alice, has recently vanished. She’d been hard up after her pet grooming business went under and was in line to collect a whopping insurance sum should anything happen to her mother. The same was due to Minnie’s estranged husband, Al, whose kryptonite (beautiful, money-grubbing women) had left him with only a run-down mobile home.
But did Minnie’s foolish, cash-strapped family really have it in them to commit a crime this grisly? Or is there a larger, far more sinister scheme at work?
Irreverent, wise-cracking, and full of atmosphere and bite, Sugar on the Bones is not to be missed.
Author
Joe Lansdale
Author · 139 books
Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror," and he adapted his short story "Christmas with the Dead" to film hisownself. The film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels for television. He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.
