Of Mice and Minestrone

March 2, 2020
Full of humor, gritty drama, and insightful observations, the five stories in this rewarding collection from Edgar winner Lansdale (The Elephant of Surprise) concentrate on the early years of his two mismatched East Texas private eyes: Hap Collins, a straight, white liberal; and Leonard Pine, a gay, black conservative. Lansdale packs a punch in the standout “Sparring Partner,” in which the pair, as high schoolers, are hired by a ruthless boxing manager to train a weakling college kid and a giant named Man Slayer. Hap and Leonard fend off a murderous racist in the thrillingly grisly “The Watering Shed,” and in the moving title tale, Hap strives to help a battered woman escape her abusive husband. A food theme runs from the smells of an adolescent Hap’s grandma’s kitchen to a teenage Leonard’s insistence on being served breakfast in a whites-only café. “Good Eats,” a selection of recipes with a disclaimer from Hap, rounds out the volume. This book adds rich background to Lansdale’s tough, morally decent characters, who first appeared in 1990’s Savage Season. Agent: Danny Baror, Baror International.

March 1, 2020
Five stories, four of them new, filling in more of the early years of that imperishable East Texas duo, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. Kathleen Kent's brief introduction suggests that the running theme here is "Kindness and Cruelty." An even more precise motto might be "Violence Is Inevitable," since Lansdale consistently treats the often lethal outbursts of his characters in disarmingly matter-of-fact terms, as if the boys couldn't help it. Three of the stories present Hap (white, straight, tough, sentimental) in the days before he met Leonard (black, gay, tougher, chip on shoulder), and two of them barely count as stories: "The Kitchen" is a retrospective valentine to the simple pleasures of a family visit to Hap's grandmother, and "The Sabine Was High" allows the pair to swap anecdotes about Hap's stint in prison and Leonard's hitch in Vietnam after Hap meets the bus bringing Leonard home. In between, the title story shows Hap's futile attempts to rescue a stranger named Minnie from the husband who batters her, tracks her down to her sister's, and maybe kills her; "The Watering Shed," the sole reprint, tracks the progress from Hap and Leonard's maiden voyage to a local bar to a suddenly ugly, race-tinged quarrel that leaves two men dead; and "Sparring Partner," the longest and best of the lot, follows the two friends to the perfect milieu, the boxing ring, where they hire out as punching bags for allegedly more dangerous opponents and where ritualized violence is subject to rules that have to be followed unless they don't. The dialogue throughout is worth the price of admission, not as stylized as Elmore Leonard's but laden with the same irresistible combination of relaxed badinage and playful threats that sometimes spiral into serious consequences while still remaining playful. The 17 down-home recipes contributed by Lansdale's daughter, Kasey, many of them as chatty as the stories, are a bonus.

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