Joe R. Lansdale has 28 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 15 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 30 ratings. The most-rated is Exit Wounds.
Vanilla Ride
Summary
Hap Collins is an east Texas redneck, with a liberal bent, and a weakness for Texas women. Leonard Pine is a black, gay, Vietnam veteran. Not who you'd normally pick for best friends but there you go. Together they share an affinity for the martial arts and are a bundle of trouble, but trouble is what they love. When an old friend of Leonard tells him that his daughter is dating an abusive, no-good drug dealer, Leonard does the only thing a man of his disposition would do: he offers to get her back, and invites Hap along for the fun. Wrapped in the Texas heat, they raid the drug dealer's hideout, rescue the girl, cause general chaos, and then proceed to teach the dealer a lesson by flushing ounces of raw cocaine down the toilet. That was their first mistake. Turns out the lowly hoods are pawns in a vast crime operation known as the Dixie Mafia, and when the Mafia comes calling for Hap and Leonard an all out car chase gunfight ensues, people die but Hap and Leonard come out on top. Their second mistake, however, was busting up one of the Dixie Mafia henchmen, who happened to be undercover FBI. Now they find themselves under arrest with only one chance to clear their name. The FBI has a Mafia man who is ready flip, but he will only do it if they can assure safe passage for him and his son. The problem is his son has skipped town with a load of the Mafia's money - some three hundred thousand dollars worth. In exchange for a clean slate, the FBI wants Hap and Leonard to find him and make sure he and the cash are returned safely. Not even Hap and Leonard can imagine the killers they will come up against this time. Suffice to say, they are big, fast, and deadly, but none of them are as smart or lethal as the legendary Vanilla Ride, who Hap and Leonard are just about to meet.
©2009 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2009 Brilliance Audio
Savage Season
Summary
A rip-roaring, high-octane, Texas-sized thriller, featuring two friends, one vixen, a crew of washed-up radicals, loads of money, and bloody mayhem. Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are best friends, yet they couldn't be more different. Hap is an east Texas white boy with a weakness for Texas women. Leonard is a black, gay Vietnam vet. Together, they stir up more commotion than a fire storm. But that's just the way they like it. So when as ex-flame of Hap's returns promising a huge score, Hap lets Leonard in on the scam, and that's when things get interesting. Chock full of action and laughs, Savage Season is the masterpiece of dark suspense that introduced Hap and Leonard to the thriller scene. It hasn't been the same since.
©2009 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Exit Wounds
Summary
Exit Wounds is a thrilling anthology of crime stories written by masters of the genre, including Dean Koontz, Val McDermid, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Elly Griffiths, Dennis Lehane, Joe R. Lansdale, and others. After an introduction by the editors, Paul B. Kane and Marie O’Regan, this collection includes the following stories: “The Bully” by Jeffery Deaver “Dead Weight” by Fiona Cummins “Like a Glass Jaw” by Mark Billingham “On The Anatomization of an Unknown Man (1637) by Frans Mier” by John Connolly “The Pitcher” by Sarah Hilary “Disciplined” by Martyn Waites “The Consumers” by Dennis Lehane “Voices Through the Wall” by Alex Gray “Wet with Rain” by Lee Child “Happy Holidays” by Val McDermid “Fool You Twice” by Steph Broadribb “Lebensraum” by Christopher Fowler “Dancing Towards the Blade” by Mark Billingham “Kittens” by Dean Koontz “Take My Hand” by A. K. Benedict “Dressed to Kill” by James Oswald “Booty and the Beast” by Joe R. Lansdale “The New Lad” by Paul Finch “The Recipe” by Louise Jensen The full list of narrators includes Kate Reading, Austin Rising, Marisa Calin, Matthew Lloyd Davies, Alan Smyth, Peter Noble, Derek Perkins, Courtney Patterson, Alison Larkin, Robert Fass, Justine Eyre, Jennifer Woodward, Helen Lloyd, Ron Butler, Rachel Jacobs, Shiromi Arserio, Ralph Lister, Ralph Lister, and James Langton. "Voices Through the Wall" © 2009 by Alex Gray. Originally published in Shattered: Every Crime Has a Victim. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Wet with Rain" © 2014 by Lee Child. Originally published in Belfast Noir. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Happy Holidays" © 2008 by Val McDermid. Originally published in the Daily Mail. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Fool You Twice" © 2019 by Marland Broadribb, Ltd. "Lebensraum" © 2019 by Christopher Fowler. "Dancing Towards the Blade" © Mark Billingham, Ltd. A version of this story was first published in Men from Boys, edited by John Harvey. Published by William Heinemann, Ltd., 2003. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Kittens" © 1966 by Dean Koontz. Originally published in The Reflector, Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania; revised edition ©1995 by Dean R. Koontz. Reprinted by permission of the author. "Take My Hand" © 2019 by A. K. Benedict. "Dressed to Kill" © 2019 by James Oswald. "Booty and the Beast" © 1995 by Joe R. Lansdale. Originally published in Archon Gaming. Reprinted by permission of the author. "The New Lad" © 2019 by Paul Finch. "The Recipe" © 2019 by Louise Jensen.
©2019 Introduction © 2019 by Paul B. Kane & Marie O'Regan. "The Bully" © 2019 by Jeffery Deaver. "Dead Weight" © 2019 by Fiona Cummins. "Like a Glass Jaw" © 2015 by Mark Billingham, Ltd. This story was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015 as part of the series Blood, Sweat, and Tears. "On The Anatomization of an Unknown Man (1637) by Frans Mier" © 2016 by John Connolly. Originally published in Night Music: Nocturnes 2. Reprinted by permission of the author. "The Pitcher" © 2019 by Sarah Hilary. "Disciplined" © 2019 by Martyn Waites. "The Consumers" © 2012 by Dennis Lehane. Originally published in Mystery Writers of America present Vengeance. Reprinted by permission of the author. (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Honky Tonk Samurai
Summary
Now the basis of the new series on SundanceTV. Only Hap and Leonard would catch a cold case with hot cars, hot women, and ugly skinheads. The story starts simply enough when Hap, a former '60s activist and self-proclaimed white trash rebel, and Leonard, a tough black, gay Vietnam vet and Republican with an addiction to Dr. Pepper, are working a freelance surveillance job in East Texas. The uneventful stakeout is coming to an end when the pair witness a man abusing his dog. Leonard takes matters into his own fists, and now the bruised dog abuser wants to press charges. One week later, a woman named Lilly Buckner drops by their new PI office with a proposition: Find her missing granddaughter, or she'll turn in a video of Leonard beating the dog abuser. The pair agrees to take on the cold case and soon discover that the used car dealership where her granddaughter worked is actually a front for a prostitution ring. The mystery of her disappearance only deepens from there. Filled with Lansdale's trademark whip-smart dialogue, relentless pacing, and unorthodox characters, Honky Tonk Samurai is a rambunctious thrill ride by one hell of a writer.
©2016 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2016 Hachette Audio
Rusty Puppy
Summary
Hap and Leonard investigate a racially motivated murder that threatens to tear apart their East Texas town. While Hap, a former '60s activist and self-proclaimed white-trash rebel, is recovering from a life-threatening stab wound, Louise Elton comes into Hap and Leonard's PI office to tell him that the police have killed her son, Jamar. Months earlier, a bully cop pulled over and sexually harassed Jamar's sister, Charm. The officer followed Charm over the course of the next couple of months, leading Jamar to videotape and take notes on the cop and his partner. The next thing Louise hears, Jamar got in a fight and is killed in the projects by local hoods. It doesn't add up: He was a straight-A student, destined for better things, until he began to ask too many questions about the racist police force. Leonard, a tough black gay Vietnam vet and Republican, joins Hap in the investigation, and they stumble upon the racial divides that have shaped their Eastern Texas town. But if anyone can navigate these pitfalls and bring the killers to justice, it's Hap and Leonard. Filled with Lansdale's trademark whip-smart dialogue, colorful characters, and relentless pacing, Rusty Puppy is Joe Lansdale at his best.
©2017 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2017 Hachette Audio
Captains Outrageous
Summary
Hap Collins, chicken plant guard, saves a young woman's life, and her father, owner of the chicken plant, rewards him with a large cash bonus. Hap and his best friend, Leonard Pine, head for a cruise to Mexico and the Caribbean. Not matching up to the exacting dress code of the on-board lobster restaurant, Leonard soon causes the pair to be abandoned in Mexico. There they are saved from knife-wielding policemen by a geriatric fisherman and his daughter, Beatrice. But try as he might, Hap can't seem to stay out of other people's business. Beatrice's past returns to haunt her in the shape of a Mexican mobster and threatens to drag Hap, and all those closest to him, into further violence.
©2009 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Bad Chili
Summary
Hap Collins has just returned home from a gig working on an off-shore oil rig. With a new perspective on life, Hap wants to change the way he's living, and shoot the straight and narrow. That is, until the man who stole Leonard Pine's boyfriend turns up headless in a ditch and Leonard gets fingered for the murder. Hap vows to clear Leonard's name, but things only get more complicated when Leonard's ex shows up dead, too. o the police, it is just a matter of gay-biker infighting, but to Hap and Leonard, murder is always serious business, and these hit a little too close to home.
©2009 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Thicket
Summary
Acclaimed author Joe Lansdale's landmark and mythic tale of love and vengeance at the dark dawn of the East Texas oil boom. 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 them both 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 rescue his sister from the corrupt men who control much of the new territory. In the throes of being civilized, East Texas is still a wild, feral place. Oil wells spurt liquid money from the ground. But blood and redemption rule supreme.
©2013 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2013 Hachette Audio
Rumble Tumble
Summary
Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are in for an action-packed adventure when they cross paths with a towering Pentecostal preacher, a midget with a giant attitude, and a gang of bikers turned soldiers of fortune. Even though a midlife crisis just crashed into Hap Collins like a runaway pickup, he's still got his job, he knows his best friend, Leonard Pine, will always be there for him, and, of course, he's got his main squeeze, Brett Sawyer. Things hit a new low, however, when Brett's daughter, Tillie, who's been walking on the wrong side of the law, suddenly stands in need of a rescue. It won't be easy - it never is - but nothing is going to stop Hap and Leonard as they hit the road destined for Hootie Hoot, Oklahoma, to shake things up. And with Hap and Leonard at the wheel, this promises to be a wild ride.
©1998 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Elephant of Surprise
Summary
The latest roaring, rollicking adventure from Edgar Award-winner Joe R. Lansdale, featuring odd-couple PIs Hap and Leonard. Hap and Leonard are an unlikely pair - Hap, a self-proclaimed white-trash rebel - and Leonard - a tough-as-nails black, gay Vietnam vet and Republican - but they're the closest friend either of them has in the world. After years of crime-solving companionship, something's changed: Hap, recently married to their PI boss, Brett, is now a family man. Amid the worst flood East Texas has seen in years, the two run across a woman who's had her tongue nearly cut out, pursued by a heavily armed pair of goons. Turns out the girl survived a mob hit, and the boss has come to clean up the mess. On a chase that blows even the East Texas swamp grass back, Hap and Leonard must save the girl and vanquish her foes before the foes get them first. With a new case to solve and a brand-new challenge to their relationship, will Hap and Leonard's friendship survive? Will Hap and Leonard survive? The Elephant of Surprise is rich with Lansdale's trademark humor, whip-smart dialogue, and plenty of ass-kicking adventures.
©2019 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2019 Hachette Audio
Hark! The Herald Angels Scream
Summary
Eighteen stories of Christmas horror from best-selling, acclaimed authors, including Joe R. Lansdale, Scott Smith, Michael Koryta, Sarah Pinborough, Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Maberry, Kelley Armstrong, and Josh Malerman. That there is darkness at the heart of the Yuletide season should not surprise. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is filled with scenes that are unsettling. Marley untying the bandage that holds his jaws together. The hideous children - Want and Ignorance - beneath the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The heavy ledgers Marley drags by his chains. In the finest versions of this story, the best parts are the terrifying parts. Best-selling author and editor Christopher Golden shares his love for Christmas horror stories with this anthology of all-new short fiction from some of the most talented and original writers of horror today.
©2018 Daring Greatly Corporation (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
The Drive-In
Summary
Book one of the Drive-In series by Joe R. Lansdale. The end of the 1980s. Drive-in movie culture is mostly dead with one significant exception: The Orbit Drive-In. A drive-in theater so large it houses screens multiple stories high that fill the sky and can hold 4,000 cars and all the people who can squeeze in them. It’s a lit city that fills to the brim on Friday nights; crowds gather for the Dusk-to-Dawn Horror Shows. Horns honk, BBQ grills sizzle, people yell and act the fool, ready for the marathon of one low-budget horror film after another. But then suddenly the world changes in front of their eyes, not on the screens. A comet, red and smiling with jagged teeth, flashes across the sky. People try to leave but find they are trapped by some acidic goo surrounding the entire drive-in. They grow hungry, homicidal, and suicidal. Then along comes the Popcorn King, a jiving, rhyming creature formed by blue-white lightning, with four arms and a popcorn bucket on its head. A monster as strange and dangerous and mesmerizing as the creatures and villains on the screens. It offers the starving masses food, but there’s always a price to pay for survival. And then things start to get wicked....
©1988 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2020 Joe R. Lansdale
Fender Lizards
Summary
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 17 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 presents itself when her heretofore-unknown uncle suddenly moves his camper into the front yard. As in his classic novels The Bottoms and The Magic Wagon, Lansdale instills place with character and character with place. Here is an overlooked world and a cast of real folks that prove unforgettable, all rendered in one of American fiction's most authentic voices.
©2017 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc., and Skyboat Media, Inc.
Jackrabbit Smile
Summary
Edgar Award-winner and fan favorite Joe R. Lansdale is back with Hap and Leonard's latest caper: investigating the disappearance of a revivalist cult leader's daughter. Hap and Leonard are an unlikely pair - Hap, a self-proclaimed white-trash rebel, and Leonard, a tough-as-nails, black, gay Vietnam vet and Republican - but they're the closest friend either of them has in the world. Hap is celebrating his wedding to his longtime girlfriend, Brett (who is also Hap and Leonard's boss), when their backyard barbecue is interrupted by a couple of Pentecostal white supremacists. They're not too happy to see Leonard, and no one is happy to see them, but they have a problem, and only Hap and Leonard will take the case. Judith Mulhaney's daughter, Jackrabbit, has been missing for five years. Well, she's been missing from them for five years, but she's been missing from everybody, including the local no-goods who ran with her, for a few months. Despite their misgivings about Judith and her son, Hap and Leonard take the case. It isn't long until they find themselves mixed up in a revivalist cult that believes Jesus will return flanked by an army of lizard-men - solving a murder to boot. With Lansdale's trademark humor, whip-smart dialogue, and plenty of ass-kicking adventures to be had, you won't want to miss Hap and Leonard's latest.
©2018 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2018 Hachette Audio
The Night They Missed the Horror Show
Summary
Cult writer Joe Lansdale reads this award-winning, famous, and controversial story of racism.
©2005 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2005 Borderland Press
Veil's Visit
Summary
Booklist called them "two of the unlikeliest but most likable amateur detectives in crime fiction" and The Chicago Tribune describes them as "colorful... lunatic... like a twister". They're Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, and if you've been reading Joe R. Lansdale's Hap & Leonard novels like Mucho Mojo, The Two-Bear Mambo, and Rumble Tumble, then this is the treat you've been waiting for. Veil's Visit is an original Hap & Leonard short story co-authored by Joe R. Lansdale and Andrew Vachss, in which Leonard gets taken to court to answer for burning down a crack house.
©1999 Joe R. Lansdale & Andrew Vachss (P)2019 Encyclopocalypse Publications
Mucho Mojo
Summary
Hap and Leonard return in this incredible, mad-dash thriller, loaded with crack addicts, a serial killer, and a body count. In the second installment of the Hap and Leonard series, Leonard is still nursing the injuries he sustained in the duo's last wild undertaking when he learns that his Uncle Chester has passed. Hap is of course going to be there for his best friend and offers to help clean Uncle Chester's dilapidated house, which Leonard has inherited. There they uncover a dark little secret beneath the house's rotting floor boards - a small skeleton buried in a trunk. Hap wants to call the police. Leonard being a black man in east Texas, persuades him this is not a good idea, and together they set out to clear Chester's name on their own. The only things standing in their way is a houseful of felons, a vicious killer, and possibly themselves.
©2009 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Dead Aim
Summary
Dead Aim marks the always welcome return of Joe R. Lansdale's most enduring fictional creations: Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. The story begins simply enough when the two agree to provide protection for a woman harassed by her violent, soon-to-be-ex-husband. But when a protracted stakeout ends in a lethal shooting and a pair of moldering corpses turn up in an otherwise deserted trailer, the nature of this "routine" assignment changes dramatically. The ensuing investigation unearths a complex web of lies, duplicity, and hidden agendas that leads from an upscale Texas law firm to the world of organized crime, culminating in the kind of explosive, anything-can-happen confrontation that only Joe Lansdale could create.
©2013 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2013 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Devil Red
Summary
Hap and Leonard is now a Sundance TV series starring James Purefoy and Michael Kenneth Williams. If there’s one thing Hap Collins and Leonard Pine like, it’s trouble - and they especially like getting paid to find it. So when their friend and sometime boss Marvin Harmon asks the boys to look into a cold-case double homicide, they’re happy to oblige. It turns out that both victims were set to inherit some serious money, and one of them ran with an honest-to-goodness vampire cult. The more closely Hap and Leonard look over the crime-scene photos, the more trouble they see. The image of a red devil’s head painted on a tree is just the beginning - a little research turns up a slew of murders with that same fiendish signature. And if things aren’t weird enough, Leonard has taken to wearing a deestalker cap.... Will this be the case that finally sends Hap over the edge?
©2011 Joe R. Lansdale. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Of Mice and Minestrone
Summary
A brand-new Hap and Leonard series collection chock full of Joe R. Lansdale’s inimitable blend of humor, mayhem, and insight, Of Mice and Minestrone delivers never-before-seen stories, a selection of the boys’ favorite recipes, by Kasey Lansdale, and an introduction from New York Times best-selling crime author Kathleen Kent. "An absolute treasure trove." (Ace Atkins, author of The Shameless) "Of Mice and Minestrone is classic Lansdale at his legendary best.... Compelling. Hilarious. Poignant" (NY Journal of Books) Today’s special: justice, East Texan-style Hap Collins looks like a good ol’ boy. But even in his misspent youth, his best pal is Leonard Pine, who is Black, gay, and the ultimate outsider. Inseparable friends, Hap and Leonard climb into the boxing ring, visit their families, get in bar fights, and just go fishing - all the while confronting racists, righting wrongs, and eating a whole lot of delicious food. So pull up a seat and sit a spell. Master storyteller Joe R. Lansdale - along with Kasey Lansdale’s down-home recipes and Kathleen Kent’s introduction - has cooked up a new passel of tales for you about the unlikeliest duo East Texas has to offer, created by his own self. About the Hap and Leonard short story series Hap and Leonard Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade The Big Book of Hap and Leonard (digital only) Lansdale’s duo made their screen debuts in the three season Hap and Leonard television series, starring Michael K. Williams (The Wire), James Purefoy (The Following), and Christina Hendricks (Mad Men).
©2020 Bizarre Hands. Introduction © 2020 by Kathleen Kent. Introduction © 2020 by Bizarre Hands. Good Eats: The Recipes of Hap and Leonard © 2020 by Kasey Lansdale. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.