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    Hoodoo Harry
    Hoodoo Harry
    Hoodoo Harry
    Ebook69 pages56 minutes

    Hoodoo Harry

    By Joe R. Lansdale

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    A long-lost bookmobile opens a wild new chapter in the lives of dysfunctional Texas detectives Hap and Leonard—stars of the hit Sundance TV series.
     
    Hap Collins is a straight, white, liberal, blue-collar tough guy. Leonard Pine is a gay, black, Republican combat veteran. Together, they’re the truest Lone Stars living in America’s most independently minded state. Best friends who’ve shared a succession of low-wage odd jobs that have gotten them into even odder situations dealing with lowlifes, now the duo delivers their own brand of ass-kicking justice as private investigators.
     
    In this brand-new story, a day’s fishing lands Hap and Leonard their biggest catch ever: the Rolling Literature bookmobile. A pillar of rural African American communities in East Texas, the renovated school bus vanished fifteen years ago—along with its driver, Harriet Hoodalay, aka Hoodoo Harry—reappearing just in time to crash Leonard’s pickup into a creek. Behind the wheel was a twelve-year-old boy who didn’t survive the accident.
     
    The kid was clearly running scared, but who was he running from and how did he end up in the driver’s seat of the missing bookmobile? The first solid lead in a case that started more than a decade earlier with Hoodoo Harry, this mystery of a small town’s dark and disturbing past will take all of Hap and Leonard’s wits—and fists—to solve.
     
    Known for his “zest for storytelling and a gimlet eye for detail,” multiple award–winning author Joe R. Lansdale brings his rapid-fire dialogue, no-holds-barred action, and gut-busting humor to this original Hap and Leonard novella (Entertainment Weekly).

    The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMysteriousPress.com Open Road
    Release dateAug 1, 2017
    ISBN9781504045704
    Hoodoo Harry
    Author

    Joe R. Lansdale

    Joe R. Lansdale is the winner of the British Fantasy Award, the American Horror Award, the Edgar Award, and six Bram Stoker Awards. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas.

    Read more from Joe R. Lansdale

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    Reviews for Hoodoo Harry

    4/5

    20 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

      Another fun little story starring Hap and Leonard, who can't seem to stay out of trouble for a minute. This time, they get wrapped up in a missing book mobile, a 12-year old driving it, and the horrific things he was trying to escape from.

      I really enjoy this series and Joe Lansdale's writing.
    • 4/5
      I've seen the Lansdale name lots of times but somehow never got around to cracking one of his books open before. At 71 pages, this novelette is a great size for an introduction to his terrific writing. He has a great narrative voice that is easy to read. The pages just fly by. Much of what's great about this book is in the easy attitude, the offbeat humor, and the fact it is do easy to get into.
    • 5/5
      20. Hoodoo Harry by Joe R. Lansdale. Driving back from a day of fishing, Hap and Leonard collide with a bus driven by a terrified twelve year-old. The boy is killed on impact and the bus turns out to be a bookmobile that serviced the tiny towns along a backroads route, bringing books to impoverished kids. Why the boy was driving the bus is a mystery, but so is the fact that the bus and its proper driver, Hoodoo Harry, have been missing for fifteen years.Number 38 of the Bibliomysteries. This is a really good one.
    • 5/5
      I love me some Hap and Leonard!And I’d love to own my own bookmobile! Especially one named "Rolling Literature"! And with all of the libraries closed right now, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I'd feel like a hero driving something like that around! Whoo doggie!Put those two together, and you’ve got a 5 Star short story, in my humble opinion!Of course, this being a typical H&L story, there are some dark goings on, maybe a bit too dark in this particular tale. But the boys are the boys, and I love their interactions, dialogue, and undying love for each other, and I'm happy as heck to have read this. By the way, the Harry from the title? Short for Harriet! And there really isn't any 'hoodoo' in the story. Kind of a curveball there! My only complaint, pretty much like always, is that it was over too fast! I always want more H&L! More, more, more!

    Book preview

    Hoodoo Harry - Joe R. Lansdale

    Lansdale_HoodooHarry.jpg

    Hoodoo Harry

    Joe R. Lansdale

    one

    The sun was falling behind the trees as we came over the hill in Leonard’s pickup, pulling a boat trailer loaded down with our small boat. We had been fishing and had caught a few. Our usual method was we terrorized the poor fish and threw them back at the end of the day, which for the fish, if you considered the alternative, wasn’t so bad.

    On this day however we caught about a half dozen good-sized perch and a couple of bass, and we thought we’d clean them and dip them in a thick batter and fry them in a deep Dutch oven full of popping grease.

    I’ve cut back on my fried foods for years now, but once in a while a bit of fried fish or fried chicken sets me right for quite a few months and I thought this would be one of those times. But our intended fish fry was cut short before the fish so much as got cleaned for frying.

    As we came over the hill, the trees crowding in on us from both sides, we saw there was a blue bus coming down the road, straddling the middle line. Leonard made with an evasive maneuver, but by this point the trees on the right side were gone, and there was a shallow creek visible, one that fed into the private lake where we had been fishing. There was no other place to go.

    The bus seemed to come for us as we veered, and I saw right before impact that there was a black kid at the wheel, his eyes wild, working the steering wheel with everything he had, but it wasn’t enough. He was out of control. The bus hit us with a loud smack and I remember suddenly feeling the odd sensation of the tires leaving the ground and the truck turning over in mid-air. I heard the trailer snap loose and saw the boat sailing along in front of us, and then it was out of sight and we were in the creek, the roof of the truck on the bottom of the creek bed, water coming in through the damaged windows.

    I heard a slow groaning of metal and realized the bus was on top of the truck and the roof of the truck was slowly crunching down into the river bed and the floor of the truck was coming down to meet us. Another few seconds and me and Leonard would be pressed like sandwich meat.

    I tried to get out of my seat belt, but nothing doing. I might as well have been fastened to that seat with duct tape. I held my breath as the water rushed in through the shattered windows, but the belt still wouldn’t come loose. A little, cardboard, pine-tree-shaped air freshener floated in front of my face, a shadowed shape against the dying sunlight leaking in at the edges of the side truck windows. A moment later the belt struggle was too much and I passed out, feeling as if I were drowning. Last thing I remember before going out was Leonard had hold of my arm—

    That was it.

    When I came to, I was lying on the ground on my side by the edge of the creek. I was dizzy and felt like I’d been swallowed by a snake and shit down a hole. My throat was raw, and I knew I had most likely puked a batch of creek water.

    I turned my head and could see the bus, which I realized now was a bookmobile. ROLLING LITERATURE was painted in large white letters

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