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Captains Outrageous
A Hap Collins and Leonard Pine Mystery
Joe R. Lansdale
Mysterious Press (Hardcover)
ISBN: 0-89296-728-5
Publication Date: September, 2001
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Hap Collins is stuck in a bit of a mid-life rut. Spending his days guarding the local poultry plant, he doesn't look forward to going home to his lady Brett, with whom making love has become like twice-ground hamburger without the fixings. Suddenly, a spontaneous, off-duty act of rescue earns Hap and his best friend Leonard Pine a cruise down the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean. But their holiday is short-lived, thanks to a shipboard eruption of Leonard's proud, hot temper. Stranded with Hap in Mexico, Leonard buys an ugly hat, gets stabbed by a thug cop, and is saved from armed desperadoes by a geriatric fisherman and his gorgeous daughter.
Then things get dangerous.
On frighteningly foreign turf, Hap and Leonard wade through a cast bigger than the U.S. army, including a nudist mobster, his seven-foot enforcer, and a hog-raising private eye. Getting way too close to high-echelon corruption and murder, they will find a parcel of trouble following them everywhere. And along the way Leonard may even buy a new hat.
Review: After an absence of several years, best friends Hap Collins and Leonard Pine return in Captains Outrageous, the fifth entry in this mystery series by Joe R. Lansdale.
Lansdale is a wonderful story-teller, and the reader often feels as if they are a part of the story and along for the ride. But the amateur sleuthing team of Hap and Leonard is definitely an acquired taste. The mystery, such as it is in Captains Outrageous, is definitely secondary to the relationship these two men have and the adventures they share together. The pacing of the story is lightening fast (helped, no doubt, by the unusually large font chosen by the publisher) and there is rarely a dull moment. The ancillary characters possess a wonderful individuality and add a measure of complexity and interest to the story.
Captains Outrageous is not the best of this series, but certainly entertaining and worth reading.
Review Copyright © 2001 Hidden Staircase Mystery Books
Other mysteries in this series by Joe R. Lansdale:
Savage Season
A Hap Collins and Leonard Pine Mystery
Bantam (1990)
ISBN: 0-553-28563-7
Mucho Mojo
A Hap Collins and Leonard Pine
Mystery
Mysterious
Press (1994)
ISBN: 0-89296-490-1
The Two-Bear Mambo
A Hap Collins and Leonard Pine
Mystery
Mysterious
Press (1995)
ISBN: 0-89296-491-X
Bad Chili
A Hap Collins and Leonard Pine
Mystery
Mysterious
Press (1997)
ISBN: 0-89296-619-X
Rumble Tumble
A Hap Collins and Leonard Pine
Mystery
Mysterious
Press (1998)
ISBN: 0-89296-620-3
