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appalonia's review against another edition
2.0
Normally I enjoy Lansdale’s books, but this one disappointed me. It was too gruesome in some places, and I’m afraid the psychotic “friend” who loves weapons and pops up just in time to help the protagonist has been done to death in crime fiction books. Also the author’s excessive use of "down-home" similes was getting to me after a while. The story itself was fine, but I don’t think the author developed the main characters enough. Good enough for a quick read if you like this type of story, but definitely not a keeper.
kmk182's review against another edition
2.0
From what I've read you have to set aside reality and just go with it with Lansdale. There's always plot holes and people act in very unbelievable ways. This one is a little too out there. A very slow beginning that was hard to get through. The ending was just too much; if you make it that far I'm not sure how you can't laugh at it.
flexdza's review
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
verkisto's review against another edition
3.0
I’m a long-time Lansdale fan. I haven’t read all of his stuff, and I haven’t been reading him “since the beginning,” but I started reading his stuff about 20 years ago, and I always enjoy his stories. He’s a gifted storyteller, and a good writer, to boot. He’s one of those writers who still entertains, even when his stories are a little mediocre, and that’s what keeps me coming back to his novels.
I picked up Leather Maiden from the library because I saw it was set in Camp Rapture, which was the setting for Sunset and Sawdust, Lansdale’s best book so far. I was hoping for a continuation of that story, and I was a little let down because the setting was the current time, and Sunset Jones was only mentioned as an ancestor of the main character, but I was still caught up in Cason Statler’s story. He’s an Iraq War veteran, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, but he has a touchy past, so he moves back to his hometown and starts working for the small-time local newspaper. It’s a good change of pace for him, but he revisits a story about a woman who went missing about eight months before, and of course, revisiting that story upsets some of the locals and sets off another chain of violent events. Cue the start of the plot and the mystery.
One of the things I like about Lansdale’s writing is his dialogue. It’s sharp and witty, and a lot of the story is told through the banter between his main characters. It’s no surprise that his best-selling series is the Hap & Leonard one, since it uses an established pair of characters who can bounce that banter back and forth. The thing is, all of his characters talk like that. In Leather Maiden, we have the banter between Cason and Booger, his war buddy, between Cason and Jimmy, his brother, and between Cason and his boss at the paper, and it all sounds about the same. It’s not bad, it was just something I noticed this time around, and now I wonder if I’m going to start seeing it in all of his writing.
Leather Maiden moves quickly and easily, but it’s not a very memorable story. It’s still a Lansdale novel, which means that it’s going to be pretty dark, so a lot of the imagery will stay with you, but the plot just isn’t anything all that special. There are a couple of moments which are just a little too convenient, and others that will make you question what’s going on in the characters’ heads, but everything that’s presented in the story is necessary. It’s put together well, and it works, it just doesn’t have much resonance. Sunset and Sawdust and A Fine Dark Line had that resonance, and I missed it in this novel. In the end, I think it was just because I couldn’t care about the characters as much as I could with his other novels.
I would rank this novel somewhere between Lost Echoes and A Fine Dark Line; it’s entertaining enough to keep you reading, without it being dumb, so long as you don’t think too hard about what’s going on. But if you like Lansdale and need a fix, Leather Maiden should do you just fine.
I picked up Leather Maiden from the library because I saw it was set in Camp Rapture, which was the setting for Sunset and Sawdust, Lansdale’s best book so far. I was hoping for a continuation of that story, and I was a little let down because the setting was the current time, and Sunset Jones was only mentioned as an ancestor of the main character, but I was still caught up in Cason Statler’s story. He’s an Iraq War veteran, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, but he has a touchy past, so he moves back to his hometown and starts working for the small-time local newspaper. It’s a good change of pace for him, but he revisits a story about a woman who went missing about eight months before, and of course, revisiting that story upsets some of the locals and sets off another chain of violent events. Cue the start of the plot and the mystery.
One of the things I like about Lansdale’s writing is his dialogue. It’s sharp and witty, and a lot of the story is told through the banter between his main characters. It’s no surprise that his best-selling series is the Hap & Leonard one, since it uses an established pair of characters who can bounce that banter back and forth. The thing is, all of his characters talk like that. In Leather Maiden, we have the banter between Cason and Booger, his war buddy, between Cason and Jimmy, his brother, and between Cason and his boss at the paper, and it all sounds about the same. It’s not bad, it was just something I noticed this time around, and now I wonder if I’m going to start seeing it in all of his writing.
Leather Maiden moves quickly and easily, but it’s not a very memorable story. It’s still a Lansdale novel, which means that it’s going to be pretty dark, so a lot of the imagery will stay with you, but the plot just isn’t anything all that special. There are a couple of moments which are just a little too convenient, and others that will make you question what’s going on in the characters’ heads, but everything that’s presented in the story is necessary. It’s put together well, and it works, it just doesn’t have much resonance. Sunset and Sawdust and A Fine Dark Line had that resonance, and I missed it in this novel. In the end, I think it was just because I couldn’t care about the characters as much as I could with his other novels.
I would rank this novel somewhere between Lost Echoes and A Fine Dark Line; it’s entertaining enough to keep you reading, without it being dumb, so long as you don’t think too hard about what’s going on. But if you like Lansdale and need a fix, Leather Maiden should do you just fine.
dlwchico's review
4.0
I was worried after the last Lansdale book I read left me with a bad taste in my mouth but this book has the old Lansdale magic. While Hap & Leonard are still my favorite Lansdale books, this one is pretty good too.
A dude goes back to his hometown to work for the local newspaper and gets involved in some local shenanigans that keep getting weirder and weirder.
Adds another name to the list of bad ass buddies of detectives with the character of ‘Booger’.
I don’t care for that cover but the book is pretty good.
A dude goes back to his hometown to work for the local newspaper and gets involved in some local shenanigans that keep getting weirder and weirder.
Adds another name to the list of bad ass buddies of detectives with the character of ‘Booger’.
I don’t care for that cover but the book is pretty good.
moreadsbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Aha! All the books I've read lately haven't been too great, and here I thought it was my poor attitude that made it so. Turns out I just haven't been reading the right books! I sat down with this around five in the afternoon and didn't put it down til I finished it around 10:30. This book is gruesome & hilarious, if a book can be both things simultaneously. Thank you, Joe Lansdale, for breaking my slump.
guiltyfeat's review
4.0
One of the reasons I like a series is that there is an understanding, for the most part, that the good guys will still be alive at the end of the book. When you read a standalone like this there is a sense of dread that anything can happen, anyone can die. At least with a first-person narrator there's one guy you feel sure will make it. It it's still scary. I enjoyed this, sense of dread notwithstanding. Not quite as funny as other Lansdales, but just as disturbed.
vkemp's review
5.0
Cason Statler moves to Camp Rapture, deep in the piney woods of East Texas after his newspaper career in Houston falls apart. Gulf War veteran and Pulitzer Prize nominee, Cason drinks too much and obsesses about his ex-girlfriend, who dumped him while he was in Iraq. He takes a job writing a column for the newspaper in Camp Rapture. While researching the files of the previous columnist, Cason runs across the intriguing story of a missing college girl. As he digs further into the story, he finds Caroline was not the nice girl everyone thought she was and Cason’s beloved older brother was deeply enmeshed in her coils. Soon Cason finds a trail of bloody events stretching across the Midwest leading back to Caroline and her accomplices. Is she really dead, as everyone assumes? Cason does not think so. Racial strife and illicit affairs culminate in a showdown between Cason, his new girlfriend, Belinda, and Cason’s Iraq War buddy, Booger, and a group of psychotic killers. Dark and disturbing, this book will resound with readers who enjoy James Lee Burke and George Pelecanos.
xterminal's review
4.0
Joe R. Lansdale, Leather Maiden (Knopf, 2008)
I love Joe Lansdale's work. Have for almost thirty years, since I first started reading his stories in the long-defunct Twilight Zone magazine. But every once in a while I forget how enjoyable his work is and don't pick up a Lansdale for three or four years. Then I read one and wonder how I ever let myself go that long without his stuff. I just finished Leather Maiden last night, and what do you know, there's that feeling again.
Cason Statler is a disgraced journalist who does about the only thing he can do—go home. All is forgiven there (probably because no one has any details of his fall from grace), he finds a job covering the social beat with the local paper, and starts stalking the woman who broke up with him long distance. Yes, all in a day's work for a lonely alcoholic journalist, but in the notes of his predecessor, he finds a few allusions to a recent missing persons case that was never solved. This is a chance for him to get back into the big time, and with the help of the spunky office secretary, he gets down to investigating.
East Texas, in the world of Joe Lansdale, is a downright creepy place, and Leather Maiden is no exception to that rule. I tend to think of Lansdale as a horror novelist, because that's where I started reading him, but he has proven his ability to do noir many, many times. So Leather Maiden is right up his alley, and it should be right up the alley of any Lansdale fan. For that matter, even if you're not a Lansdale fan, this is an excellent introduction. Most of his books are, but this is a standalone, which is on the rare side for him these days (he's been writing the Hap and Leonard series for a couple of decades now). Pick it up and get lost in Lansdale's world. *** ½
I love Joe Lansdale's work. Have for almost thirty years, since I first started reading his stories in the long-defunct Twilight Zone magazine. But every once in a while I forget how enjoyable his work is and don't pick up a Lansdale for three or four years. Then I read one and wonder how I ever let myself go that long without his stuff. I just finished Leather Maiden last night, and what do you know, there's that feeling again.
Cason Statler is a disgraced journalist who does about the only thing he can do—go home. All is forgiven there (probably because no one has any details of his fall from grace), he finds a job covering the social beat with the local paper, and starts stalking the woman who broke up with him long distance. Yes, all in a day's work for a lonely alcoholic journalist, but in the notes of his predecessor, he finds a few allusions to a recent missing persons case that was never solved. This is a chance for him to get back into the big time, and with the help of the spunky office secretary, he gets down to investigating.
East Texas, in the world of Joe Lansdale, is a downright creepy place, and Leather Maiden is no exception to that rule. I tend to think of Lansdale as a horror novelist, because that's where I started reading him, but he has proven his ability to do noir many, many times. So Leather Maiden is right up his alley, and it should be right up the alley of any Lansdale fan. For that matter, even if you're not a Lansdale fan, this is an excellent introduction. Most of his books are, but this is a standalone, which is on the rare side for him these days (he's been writing the Hap and Leonard series for a couple of decades now). Pick it up and get lost in Lansdale's world. *** ½
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