A TOWN'S PURE EVIL ALMOST KILLS OUR TWO HEROES!!!!

books:

	• The Two-Bear Mambo Joe R. Lansdale Mysterious Press, 1995 - 284 pages average customer review:based on 14 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Classic Lansdale

Lansdale delivers another fine novel featuring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, one of the oddest (and toughest) couples in mystery fiction. Hap, straight and white, and Leonard, gay and black, travel to Grovetown, Texas, a city that makes Johannesburg look like a bastion of racial unity. They are searching for Hap's ex-girlfriend Florida Grange, last seen there. Wisecracking all the way (even when they're getting the s**t kicked out of `em), the boys stir up a hornet's nest, and in the process learn some hard lessons about themselves and the nature of their friendship.

Two Bear evoked memories of the best of Robert B. Parker and John D. MacDonald. Parker, because of the dialogue, and MacDonald because of the characterization. Lansdale's characters are real people who can get hurt, even killed-- he really puts them through the wringer. Their adversaries aren't cardboard villains, twirling handlebar mustaches. Menacing and memorable, driven by hate, greed, prejudice, lust and ignorance, these folks are scary because you might meet them in real life.

In short, The Two Bear Mambo is classic Lansdale--a good, tough thoroughly enjoyable book that you will remember long after finishing.

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Humor with a heavy dose of racism

Hap and Leonard just can't seem to keep themselves out of trouble. At the beginning of The Two-Bear Mambo, Leonard is yet again setting fire to the drug dealers' house next door. Their friend Lt. Hanson has to take them in just because, but when Hap's ex-girlfriend -- and Hanson's current squeeze -- Florida Grange goes missing, Hanson agrees to drop the charges if Hap and Leonard will go look for her in Grovetown, a burg in East Texas known for its violent Klan members, and where Florida was last seen.

The Two-Bear Mambo is so far the most unflinching in its portrayal of Southern racism. Grovetown is even worse than I could have imagined and Lansdale does not look away for a moment. Leonard is the obvious target, but Hap's association with him brings him into the fray of violence as well. And as for Florida: well, no one as yet has admitted to even seeing her...

My white Southern guilt was intensified while reading The Two-Bear Mambo; the characters, their ideas, and their violence are all-too familiar from my upbringing. So much so that I could barely even bring myself to read it in public, afraid of what the people around me -- seeing the N-word on nearly every page -- would think I was reading (as if the barely euphemistic title weren't embarrassing enough).

But the trademark Lansdale humor abounds in sarcastic remarks and in the first-person narration of Hap -- whose difference from the author himself seems to be getting less and less. Lansdale has said that he is very comfortable with the voice of Hap and the easy-going prose makes that obvious. Despite my emotional reaction to the book, I look forward to continuing the adventures of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. I'm glad they can't keep away from trouble; if they did, I'd be reading some other book that isn't nearly as fun.

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If you can find it, GET IT!

Sad to think this book is already out of print. This one is the third installment of the Hap/Leonard series and picks up where Mucho Mojo left off. The pair rush off to the aid of a friend, but pay the price for their outsize egos as they find themselves in a part of the South where the calendars seem to be set 30 years behind schedule. There are no quick, easy resolutions to be found and the Hap and Leonard at the end of the book are markedly different from the two at the beginning. As always, Mr. Lansdale's keen ability to understand and describe human nature is evident. Highly recommended!

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A TOWN'S PURE EVIL ALMOST KILLS OUR TWO HEROES!!!!

THE TWO-BEAR MAMBO by Joe R. Lansdale continues the saga of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine where MUCHO MOJO left off. It starts out with Hap arriving at Leonard's house on Christmas Eve night. Blasting out of his friend's home is the music to "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" and Leonard is next door, kicking righteous butt and burning down the neighborhood crack house once again. The police pull Hap and Leonard in, but Lieutenant Marvin Hanson gets them off the hook, provided they do him a small favor. It seems that Hap's old girlfriend, Florida Grange (the one who left him for Hanson) took off to Grovetown, Texas to do an article on a black musician who supposedly hung himself while in the custody of the local police. Florida has suddenly vanished, and Hanson wants Hap and Leonard to pay a visit to Grovetown to see if they can find out anything. The only problem is that this particular Texas town is right out of the fifties and sixties. It's a viper's nest filled with Klansmen, led by Jackson Brown, who enjoy murdering the black folks and seem to be getting away with it. Both Hap and Leonard know that they're going to have their hands full just trying to stay alive as they attempt to investigate Florida's disappearance. Even together, as tough as they are, both men are going to find out that they've bitten off more than they can chew when they take on the populace of Grovetown. They'll find themselves in the middle of free-for-all that would put Billy Jack to shame and come very close to getting beaten to death. Both men will discover true fear for the first time in their lives and have to find a way of dealing with it as their injuries heal, if they want to be able to face each other again, as well as solve the mystery of what happened to Florida when they eventually return to Grovetown to face the evil of its people. THE TWO-BEAR MAMBO will give you a slightly different perspective of our two heroes this time around, making them more flawed and human. As tough as Hap and Leonard are, they're not invincible, and both of them come very close to death as they seek to right a wrong. They will find out things about themselves that will at first be difficult to face; yet, in the long run will make them stronger. Though a part of me knows that these two characters are fictional, the writing is so good that another part of me almost believes that they're real. These are guys that I'd simply love to hang out with, and it's a tribute to the talent of Joe R. Lansdale that he's created such believable characters...characters who are funny, skilled martial artists, almost always unemployed, who have the same kinds of problems with relationships that real people do, and who have a strong sense of honor and justice that gets them into trouble more often than not. Mr. Lansdale is able to do this because he has a unique skill in writing that comes off as being natural and down to earth, but is actually a master craftsman at work. He knows how to make each and every character in the novel come alive in ways I wish other authors could emulate. I never know how each book is going to end; and, quite often, I find myself stunned by who gets killed off. As you can probably tell, the "Hap Collins/Leonard Pine" series has swept me off of my feet in a way that few other books have, and it's one I can highly recommend to any reader who loves novels filled with action, humor, self-reflection, and characters that make you truly believe. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do after I read SAVAGE SEASON and then CAPTAINS OUTRAGEOUS. I wish I could sit down with Hap and Leonard, have a beer, and talk about this particular problem. Of course, I wouldn't get any sympathy from them. In fact, I'd probably have to spend an hour or more listening to their problems!!

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Another Hap and Leonard Hit!

Books like these are what everyone should be reading. It's damn near a crime that they aren't, but I guess it makes those of us who ARE fans a special little group.

Lansdale is completely unafraid to do what he has to do to further his stories. That means people you like will die, or turn out to be bad folks. It means you can't get too comfortable and think you know what's going to happen when you settle down with one of Lansdale's masterpieces.

"Two-Bear Mambo" continues the Hap & Leonard friendship: a white heterosexual Democrat and a black homosexual Republican, respectively. The story begins on Christmas Eve, where Leonard is burning down the crackhouse next door for the third time. The two friends are approached by their police buddies and sent on a mission to track down their friend: Florida Grange - Hap's old flame and Leonard's lawyer. Grange was last seen in Grovetown, a real, live throwback to the heavily segregated racist '60's.

Of course, they leave right away, and once again start stirring up trouble and townfolk in the flooded little town. As previously mentioned, no one is ever who you think they are, and things are never what they seem.

Bravo, Lansdale.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Ex-convict Hap Collins and his buddy, Leonard Pine--the Texan team from the critically acclaimed Mucho Mojo--tangle with redneck racists and a voodoo graveyard while trying to solve a grim mystery. National ad/promo. Tour.

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