Mucho Mojo (Hap and Leonard # 2), by Joe Lansdale

It was mid-April when I got home from the offshore rig and discovered my good friend Leonard Pine had lost his job bouncing drunks at the Hot Cat Club because, in a moment of anger, when he had a bad ass on the ground out back of the place, he'd flopped his tool and pissed on the rowdy's head.

Since a large percentage of the club was outside watching Leonard pop this would-be troublemaker like a Ping-Pong ball, and since Leonard hadn't been discreet enough to turn to a less visible angle when he decided to water the punk's head, the management was inclined to believe Leonard had overreacted.

Leonard couldn't see this. In fact, he thought it was good business. He told management if word of this got around, potential troublemakers would be sayin', "You start some shit at the Hot Cat Club, you get that mean queer nigger on your ass, and he'll piss on your head."

Leonard, taking into account the general homophobia and racism of the local population, considered this a deterrent possibly even more effective than the death penalty.

This excerpt is from one of Joe Lansdale's other Hap and Leonard books, Bad Chili. But it serves so perfectly as both an enticement and a warning that I'm using it here rather than an excerpt from Mucho Mojo. If you like it, you will like the books; if you hate it and/or find it wildly offensive, you will feel the same way about the books. I read it, cracked up, and immediately adored both Leonard and Hap, who is the narrator.

Hap is a straight white good old boy who went to prison in his youth for refusing to fight in Vietnam. Leonard is his best friend, a gay black Vietnam vet. Together, they fight crime. Their relationship is heartwarming and delightful, and it and the hilarious dialogue, atmospheric depiction of East Texas, and hell-for-leather prose style balance the crimes they investigate, which tend to be brutal and depressing.

After realizing that I'd somehow missed Mucho Mojo, I read it with great enjoyment. Leonard inherits a house, Hap moves in, and they discover a child's skeleton under the floorboards and a drug house next door. Things proceed from there. These books are more about character, prose, and style than they are about plot, though the plots are nicely constructed.

I'm looking forward to checking out the TV series. I've seen some stills and they look gorgeous and spooky. The books don't have fantasy elements per se but belief in the supernatural is part of some characters' lives, so the supernatural/Texas gothic vibe I get from the visuals seems suitable.

I also discovered that Lansdale wrote a bunch more in the series that I haven't read. Have any of you read the more recent books? Or seen the TV show? What did you think?

Mucho Mojo: A Hap and Leonard Novel (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)[image error]

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