Customer Reviews

Mucho Mojo

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Since discovering Lansdale earlier this year, I've read everythign i can get my hands on. i even visit his website once a week because he posts a new short story every Thrursday. The guy is simply amazing. By and far the best writer I've read in a long time, simply hilarious.

Hap and Leonard are two of the coolest characters I've ever had the pleasure to read about. One white trash, the other a black gay man. together they're two of the toughest honchos to ever clean up a neighborhood. I can't wait for the movie (though I'm sure it'll be crap in comparison).

Only reason I'm giving this four stars instead of five is that the mystery is a bit easy to solve. But it dosesn't realy matter because it's such a fun read. And now that Bubba Ho tep has been made into film (an amazingly funny film at that) you can expect to see a lot of lansdale's work translated to the screen.

Those who are politically correct and who don't want to laugh at stigmas, stereotypes and others misfortunes will miss a real treat. The plot and the story are well written as well as the sarcasm and the wisecracks which will leave you giggling to yourself and too embarassed to tell your partner what you are snickering about. This is an offbeat author who has created a cult following. Mucho Mojo takes the worse social problems, child exploitation, drug use and violence and turns it into a mystery unraveled by two guys you would like to meet in a novel but would not want living one your street. Throw in one of the dearest grandma figures as well as a corrupt minister and you have a bizarre story which will hook you to this series. Yes I was so disgusted by this book that the third time I read it I said that enough is enough! (Time to move on to the next book in the series!)

"Mucho Mojo" would be a good book to take on vacation. The story moves along nicely and has an interesting plot.

Leonard Pine is surprised to learn that he has inherited his Uncle Chester's home and $100.000. Leonard's feeling was that his uncle didn't approve of him because Leonard is gay.

His friend, Hap Collins is with him when he arrives at his uncle's home and finds drug dealers using his uncle's porch to conduct their drug business.

Leonard asks Collins to move in with him and help him fix the house up. They are busy doing this when they find the body of a young child in the basement. There are also photos of little children in sex positions and some coupons. At first they think that Leonard's uncle may have been the killer and a child pornographer but on reviewing the evidence Leonard remembers that his uncle was a cop wanna be and that he was probably looking for the killer and perhaps leaving a message before the senility that was effecting him, took hold of his brain.

The author is dealing with some sensitive subjects in this novel. Pine is a black man who is gay. Collins is a white man who is straight. Their relationship and acceptance of each other is well described. We also read of the problem of drugs in the inner city and what crack does to a neighborhood and the children who live there. Finally, we read of child pornography and pedophilia.

The story is entertaining and the characters are likable. Lansdale has a talent with his character's dialogue that makes the reader feel as if they are being told the story in the character's own voice.

Novels in the mystery and suspense genres often get a bad rap, with aspirations to something other than the typical being overlooked, or at most touted as "transcending the genre." The second entry in Joe R. Lansdale's series starring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, Mucho Mojo, is a book just like that.

When Leonard's uncle Chester dies, he inherits the old homeplace. This causes complex feelings in Leonard since Chester had disowned Leonard on learning that Leonard was gay. While he and Hap are fixing up the place, they discover a large wooden box in which is found a child's skeleton and a stash of child porn magazines. Despite the obvious circumstantial evidence, Hap urges Leonard to look into alternative explanations. Meanwhile, they meet up the drug dealers across the street, a local preacher with questionable motives, and the lovable MeMaw, Leonard's neighbor who always has time (and an open invitation) for a glass of tea.

In addition to the plot involving the secret murders of several of a small town's black children, Mucho Mojo investigates such heavy subjects as relationships -- whether black-white, man-woman, gay-straight, adult-child, young-old -- and racism. And all the while Lansdale delivers a cracker of a crime novel, with a terrific ending, that continues the story of the main characters as begun in Savage Season.

Lansdale writes tough, and this book has some of the most effective and sinewy descriptions of close-in, bareknuckle conflict you'll find. The unlikely pair of protaganists are much more than action heroes, though: they manage to be quirky, philosophical, and prone to late-night conversations that ring of true friendship. The secondary characters are well-drawn as well, particularly the elderly neighbor and a pair of policemen who provide something of a mirror-image to the main duo. The nature of the characters and their relationships yield blunt yet astute commentary on matters of race, sex, and justice.

The only real weakness here is the central mystery, which is a bit telegraphed and overwrought. One gets the feeling that Lansdale might have done better with a straight storyline, which these characters could easily carry.

I've found another author to read regularly. This novel is my introduction to Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, two friends who happen to have one of the most original and realistic relationships I've read. Hap travels to La Borde, Texas with Leonard, who has been left his recently deceased uncle's old house. As they are fixing up the house they discover a small skeleton and several kiddie porn magazines buried under the floor. Leonard cannot accept that Uncle Chester was a ...child murderer so he persuades Hap to help him clear Chester's name. That decision opens the door to an expertly plotted and neatly tied together mystery. Lansdale gives pieces of information that are not contrived but flow into the story and add interest and color. He introduced characters and relationships that I became interested in and wanted to learn more about. The sarcasm and repartee between Hap and Leonard is reason enough to read the book. Put that clever and realistic dialogue in a mystery full of colorful characters that also has some very suspenseful moments and you have a few hours of rich, first-rate entertainment. I highly recommend MUCHO MOJO.

Joe R. Lansdale is a writer like no other. He hears the music and translates it better than just about anyone. MUCHO MOJO is a fine-tuned suspense novel cranked up to the max. This is the second book in the series about Hap and Leonard, two Texas buddies who get into tons of trouble. Hap is a straight white guy and Leonard is a gay black man. Both are brilliantly realized characters and you're going to love them. You could just hang out with Hap and Leonard for a few hundred pages listening to them talk about stuff and you'd have a great time. But Lansdale is a true master. He hammers out a great story to drive the suspense. The scene where Hap and Leonard are in a black bar and Leonard explains various deragotory terms to Hap (like "honky" and a number of them that I can't print here) is worth the price of admission alone. There's humor, action and suspense as only Joe R. Lansdale can deliver.

After I finished this book, I had trouble trying to slot it in a classification. It was a mystery, that much is certain, but it is not a typical "here's the detective, here's the crime, here are the suspects, unveil the culprit" mystery. This book has more characterization than any five modern mystery books combined.

Hap and Leonard are the sleuth duo for the 90's. Their witty, brave, compassionate, driven, and the best of friends. Oh yeah, one's black and the other is white, but don't think for one moment that this book is politically correct. In fact, it is one of the most politically incorrect books I have ever read. And I laughed my *ss off in nearly every chapter at something Lansdale wrote.

Great stuff. Do yourself a favor and read something by Joe Lansdale! I wouldn't steer you wrong. If he was not worthy of the hype, I'd call him a hack.

Lansdale has perhaps created one of the most interesting couplings in Hap Collins and Leonard Pine - a Democrat white heterosexual and a Republican black homosexual, respectively. Their interactions alone are nearly interesting enough, when you add the actual plotline to the mix, you have a no-fail concoction.

Hap and Leonard are dealing with the aftermath of "Savage Season," the first book in the Hap and Leonard series, when Leonard's Uncle Chester dies, leaving him his run-down house and some mysterious, seemingly random items. To boot, Uncle Chester's got a "bottle tree" in his backyard to ward off the eponymous "mucho mojo" (meaning "much bad magic"). This charming abode has a few unpleasant aspects - it's a few dorrs down from a functioning crackhouse and it has the skeletal remains of a young boy in a box under the floorboards. It's up to Hap and Leonard to decipher the unusuals clues Uncle Chester left, and figure out just who is committing such heinous crimes.

There are some wonderful characters in this novel - some will strike you as not-good-people almost from the get-go, and some will take you by real surprise. Lansdale is magic with his dialogue, and Hap and Leonard have some of the Best Conversations Ever. I cannot recommend this enough.

Mucho Mojo is the second installment in the Hap&Leonard series. The first book in the series is savage season but that novel is now out of print and quite difficult to find. Besides, I've been hearing through the grapevine that it is easily the weakest entry in Lansdale's five-book Hap&Leonard series. I felt like Mucho Mojo was the best place to start and I was not dissapointed in the least.

The story is set in rural East Texas in a segregated black section of the town of Laborde. Leonard's uncle Chester has recently passed away and Leonard inherits his house. While him and Hap are working on renovating the house, they discover the remains of a young child hidden in a metal chest. Leonard refuses to believe that his uncle was a child killer and convinces Hap to help him uncover the mystery behind the child's murder.

As always, Joe Lansdale dazzles the reader with his unique writing style. You can practically feel the heat of a Texas summer day. I would have to say the highlights of this novel were the verbal exchanges between Hap&Leonard. There was something to make me laugh on every page. Now I want to read all of the Hap&Leonard books.