Scan barcode
A review by misterjay
The Two-Bear Mambo (Hap and Leonard, #3) by Joe R. Lansdale
4.0
Two-Bear Mambo opens with Leonard having just set fire to the crack house next door and feeling no remorse about it. This causes friction with his boyfriend and the police and ends up with the former leaving and the latter tasking the boys to go searching for the missing Florida Grange. From there, the story heads down to a small, backwater town in east Texas where the racism is blatent and the distrust of strangers is legendary. Hap and Leonard's contrary natures get the better of them and soon, there are more fights, blood, questions, and klan members than you could shake a stick at. And all the while, Florida remains missing.
This third novel in the Hap and Leonard series is a lot of fun, while being even darker than the first two. The wisecracks and quips are sharper than ever and the settings just as vivid and just as depressing as ever. At the same time, the sex of the first two novels is cranked down in favor of visceral descriptions of racism and more violence.
While the plot boils and the conversation and descriptions sparkle, the plot is more than a little transparent. When the finale does come, it comes not with a sense of revelation, but a sense of inevitability and obviousness, as if it could not have ended any other way; the clues planted by the author are much more obvious to the reader than to the characters and that feels like a bit of a let down. It felt a little like author Lansdale could not decide if he wanted to tell a whodunnit or if he wanted to tell a crime story. There are elements of both, and both are well done, but they could have been blended together a little better.
As always, Phil Gigante's reading, especially the accents and voices, add a new dimension to an already well told story that makes it well worth the time to listen to, rather than read, the novel.
This third novel in the Hap and Leonard series is a lot of fun, while being even darker than the first two. The wisecracks and quips are sharper than ever and the settings just as vivid and just as depressing as ever. At the same time, the sex of the first two novels is cranked down in favor of visceral descriptions of racism and more violence.
While the plot boils and the conversation and descriptions sparkle, the plot is more than a little transparent. When the finale does come, it comes not with a sense of revelation, but a sense of inevitability and obviousness, as if it could not have ended any other way; the clues planted by the author are much more obvious to the reader than to the characters and that feels like a bit of a let down. It felt a little like author Lansdale could not decide if he wanted to tell a whodunnit or if he wanted to tell a crime story. There are elements of both, and both are well done, but they could have been blended together a little better.
As always, Phil Gigante's reading, especially the accents and voices, add a new dimension to an already well told story that makes it well worth the time to listen to, rather than read, the novel.