Synopsis
One of the most savagely original, dazzlingly versatile authors on the scene today, Joe R. Lansdale attracts greater critical acclaim, more awards, and thousands of new, devoted readers with every work of suspense, horror, western, or graphic fiction. Now, he combines the finest elements of each of these literary forms in Mucho Mojo, a masterpiece of regional marvels and dark suspense, sure to be reckoned his most fabulous achievement to date.
Under the blister of a Texas sun, you distract your mind or watch it die. For Hap Collins, slaving in the rose fields of July, the diversion is fantasies of iced tea and willing women. For Leonard Pine's Uncle Chester, the mental deterioration is too fatally advanced. Dying in the slums of LaBorde, he no longer despises with the same passion his gay nephew Leonard. He ignores the crack house next door. And he forgets about what he'd buried under the floorboards of his house.
He does remember to erect a forbidding "battle tree": a ragged post festooned with glass, designed to ward off black magic.
When Leonard and his old friend Hap clean out Uncle Chester's house, they dig up a small skeleton, wrapped in pornographic magazines - along with a grotesque link between an unsolved series of child murders and Leonard's late relative and guardian. Thinking white, Hap wants to call the police. But Leonard, intimate with the unwritten codes in his black part of town, persuades his partner to help clear Chester's name, sans outside reinforcement. Together, they unearth the deepest, ugliest truth of all.
Suspense sublimely laced with Texas Gothic, Mucho Mojo deftly blends race and romance, sex and death, the too good to be true and the too dark to imagine.
Reviews
A raunchy tale of perversion and murder with a distinctly East Texan twist. Chester Pine has just died, leaving his house and property to the care of his gay nephew, Leonard. When Leonard, who's black, and his white friend, Hap Collins, begin repairs on the dilapidated house, they find a box beneath the floorboards containing a rotting baby skeleton sandwiched between pages of Psalms and kiddie-porn magazines. When they look further, they find more skeletons. Local police lieutenant Marvin Hanson suggests that Chester murdered the children. The trail of the exploration leads them to a close friend of the deceased named Ilium Moon, who might be able to give them some insight into the death of the children. They find Moon's corpse at the bottom of a lake. Next on Hap and Leonard's trail lies the local reverend, whose edginess in the face of questioning and probable association with the Psalms sheets make him a likely candidate for villainhood. And so he is: During a village carnival, Hap and Leonard catch him before he can spirit away a busload of toddlers for seemingly innocent purposes. Other plots include Hap's destruction of a crack house and a failed love affair between Hap and Florida Grange, a black lawyer. Although the book drags a bit, it tantalizes with its odd syntax--characters say such things as ``I'd been younger, I'd did it,'' a reproduction of the fractured grammar native to Lansdale's (Dark at Heart, 1992, etc.) imaginary East Texas town of LaBorde. Also, Chandler-esque oddballs pop up throughout the book, providing refreshing breaks from the darkness of the plot. A hybrid between a thriller and a comedy of manners that is imaginative and chilling. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
The publicist raved about this dark suspense novel, which concerns a gay couple who unearth a tiny skeleton that may be linked to a series of child murders.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Hap Collins is an East Texas field worker. His buddy, Leonard Pine, is gay, black, and tough as hell. Leonard's uncle dies and leaves a house and money. When Leonard and Hap begin to clean the place out, they discover an old trunk containing a child's skeleton and some porno mags. Leonard persuades Hap to help him clear his uncle's name before they tell the authorities. Their haphazard on-again, off-again investigation--interrupted by a series of confrontations with the crack-house gang next door--reveals that Leonard's uncle and a friend of his, also murdered, were gathering evidence intended to expose a serial killer. It's one way to while away one's golden years. Hap and Leonard--East Texas' dusty version of Spenser and Hawk--wisecrack their way to a resolution, clean out the crack house in a satisfying conflagration, and exorcise a couple of personal demons along the way. Lansdale has written hundreds of short stories and numerous novels; all that went before has crystallized into this extraordinarily memorable book. The friendship and smart-ass patter between Hap and Leonard is so real it's palpable; the plot is compelling; and one can practically hear the wind and taste the dust of an East Texas summer. Damn, this is good. Wes Lukowsky
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