Born For Trouble: The Further Adventures of Hap and Leonard - Joe. R. Lansdale

Born for Trouble is a collection of novellae and short stories in the universe of Hap and Leonard, issued from the pen of the prolific and always hugely entertaining Joe. R. Lansdale. Those of you who follow this blog on the regular will know that I’ve been a big fan of Hap and Leonard, and their various misadventures, for years. Getting another slice of East Texas mayhem and found-family affection is always a treat. And so it proves here!

I will say that if you’re a fan of the series, this is likely going to hit the spot for you. A newcomer will find it accessible and entertaining too, but might be advised to dig into the larger series as well. But either way, the crux of the thing: what is it, is it well written, do I want to spend money on it?

Lets start at the end. Yes. If you’re looking for more Hap & Leonard, this is going to meet your needs. Opening it up and reading through the stories, filled with warm banter, cold violence and a sense of place that you can feel in your bones…well. It’s like slipping into a pair of comfortable old shoes, which…may also happen to be a little bloodstained. 

The stories themselves are, well, delightful, in the way they blend the weird and the prosaic. The way they bring to life a Texan swamp jungle in one breath, filled with predatory animals and people, and in the next ask us to consider the mundane, intimate absurdity of tracking down a lost stuffed dog. Though that one does go somewhere rather unexpected, come to think of it. In any case, they’re the sort of stories I’ve come to these books to read. Filled with a low-key camaraderie from the leads, a kind of low-key simmering energy which makes their loyalties and joy in each other obvious, while also not being afraid to let them run their mouths and give each other crap in an endless game of fat-chewing. Filled with vivid descriptions that manage to ensure that particular neck of Texas feels alive to me, feels real  and is unflinching in showing off the horror and the death in it, but the beauty as well. 

And the plots have that blend to them as well. From a dead child in a bookmobile, to the aforementioned stuffed dog, to the stalking of a psychologist - there’s no turning away from the reality of crime, or the sordid nature of much of its motivations. But it’s never unfair - you always know as much as the protagonists do, and if you’re as baffled as they are, well, that’s probably just as well.And the stories themselves…well, they’re Lansdale in fine form. Smartly paced, they’ll keep you turning pages. But they’re also clever, twisty, a little dark, sometimes surprisingly poignant, and usually able to elicit some genuine laughter too. Because they’re looking at people, at Hap and Leonard, and also at all the folks around them, their family, their friends, and the psychology of the people and events they’re looking into. 

I don’t want to touch too much on the boys themselves here. I will say that Hap and Leonard’s genuine affection for each other, a friendship that seems to have long ago swerved into brotherhood, is palpable on the page. And it makes me happy to see that kind of relationship brought to the fore - two men working side by side, sharing hope and loss and dreams, and managing to do it without being appallingly toxic. They’re good lads, those two, and the heart of every story is the way they know each other. Which isn’t to say there isn’t some shit-talking and some very hurtful remarks about vanilla cookies. But still. It is worth noting that the boys themselves remark on their getting older, and Hap, at least, is starting to feel the effects of the pressure of their adventures - and it’s wonderful to see these stories look unflinchingly at depression, at trauma, at the costs of violence - and do so in a way which still feel real and human. 

Which isn’t to say it’s all doom and gloom. Far from it.in the end, these stories are fun. They’ll make you feel, though, and no shame in that, cry and laugh while you try and figure out what the heck is going on, and then nod knowingly when the criminals are revealed or comeuppances are issued. 

So, to circle back toi the point I drifted off of up there: what is it? It’s more Hap & Leonard. Is it well written? Yes, yes it is. Should you buy it? Abso-bloody-lutely. 

The Girl and the Moon - Mark Lawrence

Okay, so The Girl and the Moon. What is it? Well, it’s the concluding novel in Mark Lawrence’s The Book of the Ice trilogy. And it’s also bloody brilliant. 

That reaction probably isn’t a great surprise to most of you, who know I’ve been a fan of Mark’s work for quite a while now. But I want to emphasise it again, for those of you nodding along and saying “Yeah but you like everything he writes”. Yes. Yes I do. It’s intelligently written, with complex characterisation which builds complicated, human characters out of hardship, friendship, and the occasional bout of violence. It’s written with an eye to a world which makes sense, which is rich in detail, which has a history that we’d love to see mor e of, even as we soak up the grandeur, strangeness and similarities unrolling in front of us. And it has stories that make you want to keep reading. That last one, perhaps most of all. It blends together characters and world and story into a delightful narrative gumbo, one which it’s impossible to stop eating. I mean reading. 

And all of those traits are on display here. Yes.  But this one is a stunner, even by the usual high standard for Lawrence’s work. My initial review was just a line that said “I was up until one-thirty in the morning reading this, and I have no regrets”. That is still very true. And I have every expectation that if you’ve come along on the journey of Yaz and her friends, as they trudged through endless ice, through the subterranean husks of haunted worlds, and through the under currents of their own understanding…well, then you won’t have any regrets reading this, either. 

I will make one caveat: this is the final book in a trilogy. There is a summary of the previous two books at the front, so if you haven’t read the first two in a while, that’ll brush up your memory. And if you haven’t read either of them, you could probably use that summary to come in and not be entirely lost. But really, if you’re new to the series, go back to the start, you won’t regret it. 

Which is a whole lot of words just to say, this is a book that anyone invested in Yaz’s story, and the world of Abeth, should read. But you should. Go get a copy!

I don’t want to mine too deep, for fear of spoilers, but let’s talk a little bit about Abeth. It’s a world we’ve seen before (in the Red Sister series), but mostly the nicer, sunny bits, filled with politics, magic and murder. And then we’ve had The Book of the Ice, which has been filled with a lot of, well, if we’re honest, ice. And also some magic, and, yes, sometimes a murder. But we’ve seen characters moved out of their element, seen them adapt, work together, understand each other, and push forward together. Here, they’re doing something a little different - stepping into a climate that isn’t trying to kill them, and into a society which operates by different rules, and may well, in fact, try to kill them. The sense of personal connection and social disconnection is done beautifully, as our intrepid band rapidly find themselves out of their depth. They have each other to rely on, but they don’t know the rules, and they don’t know how to survive in a world which isn’t bounded by the necessity of subsistence survival. From a characterisation point of view, this is beautifully done - watching new bonds form, watching each of Yaz’s friends, and Yaz herself, struggle with the idea of abundance, in even a transient sense. Watching them try to understand what it is that drives people with so much to do some pretty awful things. And it also says to the reader, I think, that these strangers in a strange land, they’re not stupid, or bad, or wrong in their strangeness, they just operate in a different context. Something we could all stand to think about in our own lives, perhaps. 

It’s great to see Yaz taking the lead here, a woman who has really been growing into herself. Deciding who she is and what she actually wants has always been a struggle, and we’ve seen that before in the fragments of “devils” that she’s encountered, broken pieces of their former selves. But Yaz is taking hold of parts of herself and examining them, holding onto them, making her sense of self something she shapes, something not defined by the expectations of those around her. That’s a powerful message, and one that will resonate strongly with a lot of readers. And, to be fair to Yaz, she does this while also kicking some serious butt, getting an understanding of her own emotional vulnerabilities, planning to save the world, and making new friends. Basically, Yaz is awesome. And she’s backed by an amazing supporting cast, from nefarious unspeakable ancient evils, right through to the mechanised spirit of a teenage ancestor, and out the other side to familiar faces from the ice plains. And she’s going to meet more than a few new friends and enemies in this story, too (and there’s some connections into Lawrence’s other work, if you’re paying attention).

Anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. 

Yaz is great, a protagonist with a fascinating perspective, and with energy and resilience that makes her a pleasure to follow along with. Her fellow cast add excellent flavour to the stew - as does Abeth itself, a rich world with a diverse, multi-layered history which I’d love to explore further. And the story, as I said way back at the start of this review, was one that kept me up until waaaaay too late. It kept me turning pages, and it’ll do the same for you.

So we’re back to the top, and the big question is, should you read this? Yes, yes you should. As fast as you can!