Books

“Vanilla Ride,” By Joe R. Lansdale: Knopf, 256 pages, $24.95.
Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are a couple of good old boys from rural Texas.
They eat a lot of unhealthy food, drive old trucks, sing along with Hank Williams’ songs and get into thrilling adventures with an array of murderous bad guys.
They do so at the bidding of novelist Joe R. Lansdale, who has just published his most recent Hap and Leonard concoction, “Vanilla Ride.”
In this one, the seventh in the series and the first since 2002’s “Captains Outrageous,” the boys are asked by an old amigo to liberate his daughter from her lowlife, dope peddling boyfriend, which they succeed in doing but not before stirring up a hornet’s nest popularly known as “the Dixie Mafia.”
Fans of the series will be pleased with “Vanilla Ride.” The story is tightly told and Leonard and Hap are at their bickering, wise cracking, karate chop-throwing best.
Hap and girlfriend Brett are doing well while Leonard and his latest boyfriend — yup, I said boyfriend — are on the outs, which adds another layer of complexity to the already complicated lives of Fictional Texas’s two most outlandish crime fighters.
Newcomers to the series, particularly if they like their derring do accompanied by a healthy portion of humor, may soon be searching for copies of the older books in the series.
Word of warning, this isn’t a Miss Marple adventure. Lansdale writes his women sexy, his sex kinky, and his violence as flamboyant as it is blood-drenched.
It’s good, rowdy fun.