Joe R Lansdale
1) The thicket
Author
Description
"Jack Parker knows all too well how treacherous turn-of-the-century East Texas can be. His parents did not survive a smallpox epidemic. His grandfather was murdered. Now his sister Lula has been kidnapped by a criminal who may believe wearing a dead man's clothes protects him from death. With bounty hunter Shorty, a charismatic and cunning dwarf, and Eustace, a gravedigging son of an ex-slave, the heartbroken young Jack sets off on an epic quest to...
2) Paradise sky
Author
Formats
Description
Taken in by a man named Loving after his father is murdered, young Willie learns to shoot, ride, read, and garden. When Loving dies, Willie re-christens himself Nat Love in tribute and heads west. In South Dakota Territory, Nat becomes a Buffalo Soldier, is befriended by Wild Bill Hickok, earns the nickname Deadwood Dick and the love of a beautiful woman.
3) Rusty puppy
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2017.
Description
Mismatched private detectives Hap and Leonard investigate the murder of a young black man who was conducting his own civilian investigation into the white cop who was stalking his sister.
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2024.
Formats
Description
"Minnie Polson is dead. Burned to a crisp in a fire so big and bad it had to be deliberate. The only thing worse is that Hap and Leonard could have prevented it. Maybe. Minnie had a feeling she was being targeted, shaken down by some shadowy force. However, when she'd solicited Hap & Leonard, all it took was one off color joke to turn her sour and she'd called them off the investigation. Wracked with a guilty conscience, the two PIs--along with Hap's...
6) The bottoms
Author
Formats
Description
This Edgar Award winner is "equal parts morality tale and page-turning thriller" (Denver Post)—classic American storytelling in its truest, darkest, and most affecting form, with echoes of William Faulkner and Harper Lee.
It's 1933 in East Texas and the Depression lingers in the air like a slow-moving storm. When a young Harry Collins and his little sister stumble across the body of a black woman who has been savagely mutilated...
It's 1933 in East Texas and the Depression lingers in the air like a slow-moving storm. When a young Harry Collins and his little sister stumble across the body of a black woman who has been savagely mutilated...
Author
Publisher
Encyclopocalypse Publications
Pub. Date
[2024]
Description
"Deck the halls with boughs of zombies! In his original short story, Christmas with the Dead, acclaimed author Joe R. Lansdale delivers a holly-jolly horror story like no other. Meet Calvin, a man determined to bring the Christmas spirit back to his zombie-infested town, even if it means risking life and limb to hang up those Christmas lights. This festive compilation includes the original short story, the screenplay adaptation by Keith Lansdale that...
Author
Publisher
Subterranean Press
Pub. Date
2020.
Description
"Jane has lost her job at the laundry due to a ketchup package she forgot to remove from an expensive item, and her prospects look dim. To top off matters, her younger sister, who lives up north, and who Jane has problems with, is getting married and has mailed her an invitation that Jane believes was sent due to her sister not expecting her to be able to come. A long bout of sibling rivalry makes Jane all the more determined to go, even if her car...
Author
Publisher
Mysterious Press
Pub. Date
2003
Description
Thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchel Jr. spends most of his time helping his family run the town's drive-in movie theater, reading ten-cent comics, and playing with his dog Nub.
Life in East Texas circa 1958 is not very exciting until Stanley discovers a stash of old, crumbling love letters in a pile of burnt rubble behind the drive-in. As Stanley reads through the letters, he finds himself in the middle of a town mystery and discovering the secrets...
Life in East Texas circa 1958 is not very exciting until Stanley discovers a stash of old, crumbling love letters in a pile of burnt rubble behind the drive-in. As Stanley reads through the letters, he finds himself in the middle of a town mystery and discovering the secrets...
10) Cold in July
Author
Publisher
Tachyon Publications
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
"Richard Dane has killed a man. Everyone in the small town of LaBorde, Texas knows Dane acted in self defense-- everyone except Ben Russel, the father of the criminal who invaded Dane's home. When Russel comes looking for revenge against Dane's family, the two fathers are unexpectedly drawn into a conspiracy that conceals the vilest of crimes. Surrounded by police corruption, mafia deception, and underworld brutality, Dane, Russel, and eccentric PI...
11) Fender lizards
Author
Publisher
Subterranean Press
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
Dot waitresses on roller skates at the Dairy Bob, doesn't care for smoking at least partly on account of her dad having never returned from a cigarette run, and carries on the family tradition of philosophizing. Life hasn't done her any favors in her seventeen years so far. But if there was ever a heroine built for turning things upside down and seeing what shakes out, it's Dot. Determined to find out who she is and why she's the way she is, an opportunity...
Author
Publisher
Mulholland Books, Little, Brown and Company
Pub. Date
2021.
Description
"Daniel Russell was only thirteen years old when his father tried to kill them both by driving their car into Moon Lake. Miraculously surviving the crash and growing into adulthood, Daniel returns to the site of this traumatic incident in the hopes of recovering his father's car and bones. As he attempts to finally put to rest the memories that have plagued him for years, he discovers something even more shocking among the wreckage that has ties to...
Author
Publisher
Subterranean Press
Pub. Date
2018.
Description
From the Dusty Great Depression to the far future, to the wild west, to the era of big fin automobiles, soda shops and double features, as well as dark journey on an icy ocean full of ravenous sharks and a fantastic shipwreck that leads its survivors into a nightmarish Lovecraftian world of monsters and mystery, Joe R. Lansdale returns with a pack of stories for your consumption and enjoyment.
There's even killer machines, a big ole grizzly...
There's even killer machines, a big ole grizzly...
14) The magic wagon
Author
Publisher
Doubleday
Pub. Date
1986
Description
First published in 1986, THE MAGIC WAGON tells the tall tales of narrator Buster Fogg and the group of traveling merchant marauders he takes up with after his family is killed by a tornado. Their adventures take them through dank caves, across the countryside, and into Mud Creek - an East Texas town that would have made Deadwood look like the Land of Oz.
15) Deadman's Road
Author
Publisher
Blackstone Publishing
Pub. Date
2014
Description
Deadwood meets Cthulhu in this wild and profane Western romp featuring zombies, werewolves, evil spirits, and one pissed-off gunslinging preacher.
The Wild West has never seen the likes of the Reverend Jebidiah Mercer, a hard man wielding a burning Bible in the battle between God and the devil, in an endless struggle he's not sure he cares who wins. With its five stories laced with fast-paced action, nonstop humor, and spine-tingling
...16) The donut legion
Author
Formats
Description
"Charlie Garner has a bad feeling. His ex-wife, Meg, has been missing for over a week and one quick peek into her home shows all her possessions packed up in boxes. Neighbors claim she's running from bill collectors, but Charlie suspects something more sinister is afoot. Meg was last seen working at the local donut shop, a business run by a shadow group most refer to as 'The Saucer People'; a space-age, evangelist cult...Along with his brother Felix...Charlie...
17) Freezer burn
Author
Publisher
Warner Books
Pub. Date
2000
Description
After a botched holdup, Bill, a not-too-bright bungler who has been living with his dead mother in order to collect her social security checks, hides out in a traveling freak show populated by a bizarre assortment of bearded ladies, hermaphrodites, dogmen, and a mysterious frozen man.
Contains mature themes.
Contains mature themes.
Author
Publisher
Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Co
Pub. Date
c2012
Description
Mark Twain meets classic Stephen King — a bold new direction for widely acclaimed Edgar Award winner Joe R. Lansdale.
May Lynn was once a pretty girl who dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star. Now she's dead, her body dredged up from the Sabine River.
Sue Ellen, May Lynn's strong-willed teenage friend, sets out to dig up May Lynn's body, burn it to ash, and take those ashes to Hollywood to spread around. If May Lynn can't become a...
May Lynn was once a pretty girl who dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star. Now she's dead, her body dredged up from the Sabine River.
Sue Ellen, May Lynn's strong-willed teenage friend, sets out to dig up May Lynn's body, burn it to ash, and take those ashes to Hollywood to spread around. If May Lynn can't become a...
Author
Publisher
Mulholland Books, Little, Brown and Company
Pub. Date
2020.
Description
Dispatched to repossess a Cadillac from a deadbeat pet-cemetery owner and his beautiful wife, an unscrupulous used-car salesman embarks on an affair that tests the limits of his character.
From the Edgar Award-winning author of the Hap and Leonard series, a hard-boiled novel set in 1960s Texas in which a no-nonsense car salesman faces a tempting decision, a dangerous deal, and an alluring affair. Ed Edwards is in the used car business, a business...
20) Leather maiden
Author
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
2008
Description
After a scandalous affair costs him his job in Houston, Cason Statler--Gulf War veteran and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist--returns home to the small east Texas town of Camp Rapture. Cason is a wreck. He drinks too much, he's stalking his ex-girlfriend, and he's wallowing in envy of his successful older brother. To get back on his feet, he takes a job at the local paper, and when he stumbles across his predecessor's notes on a cold case murder...