The Two-Bear Mambo [With Earbuds] (Playaway Adult Fiction) [Preloaded Digital Audio Player]

Joe R. Lansdale (Author), Phil Gigante (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2009 | Series: Playaway Adult Fiction

Full of savage humor, heart-stopping suspense, and a cast of characters so tough they could chew the bumper off a pickup truck, The Two Bear Mambo is classic country noir.In this rollicking, rollercoaster ride of a novel, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine take a break from their day jobs to search for Florida Grange, Leonard's drop-dead gorgeous lawyer and Hap's former lover, who has vanished in the Klan-infested East Texas town of Grovetown. Before she disappeared, Florida was digging up some dirt behind the mysterious jailhouse death of a legendary bluesman's son, who was in possession of some priceless merchandise. To Hap and Leonard, something don't smell right. With murder on their minds, Hap and Leonard set out to investigate as only they now how . . . chaotically.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Veteran Lansdale brings back his incomparable Texas team of narrator Hap Collins and Leonard Pine for an encore that's just as funny and violent and gripping as their first appearance in Mucho Mojo. Police Lt. Marve Hanson agrees to forget the duo's role in the Christmas Eve torching of a crack house if they go to the small East-Texas town of Grovetown to find his girlfriend (also Hap's ex), lawyer Florida Grange, who was investigating the jailhouse death of a black man who possessed some valuable old blues recordings. The Klan is alive and well in Grovestown and Hap, who is white, and Leonard, who is black and gay and habitually introduces himself as "The Smartest Nigger In The World," don't endear themselves to the locals. But they do track Florida to a dilapidated trailer park, where her trail ends. The conclusion, which involves a graveyard and an epic flood, is gruesome, frightening and captivating. Throughout, Lansdale intersperses some horrific and hilarious anecdotes (one is about a chihuahua that comes to a bad end: "Yeeech," says Leonard. "I'm just glad it wasn't a real dog"). This is strong stuff, filled with sexual references and violent racism. The mystery involves what happened to Florida and what happened to the dead man's music. But the heart of the tale is the friendship of Hap and Leonard, which is rendered by Lansdale in perfectly pitched, profanity-laced repartee and guided throughout by a strong moral compass.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Bad guys beware: Lansdale's protagonists put it all up front. The narrator Hap, an opinionated, sarcastic, white heterosexual, and partner Leonard, a bull-headed, blunt, black, homosexual arsonist, travel to small, racist Grovetown, Texas, to search for news of their investigative-lawyer friend Florida. While looking for information about a black man who reputedly hanged himself in the town's notorious jail, Florida disappeared. Lansdale's prose also hangs it all out, with an eye to precise description, an ear to the proper word, and a mind to expository wit. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Preloaded Digital Audio Player
• Publisher: Playaway (June 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608478033
• ISBN-13: 978-1608478033
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Hotep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror." He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humor with a heavy dose of racism, June 23, 2004

By 

Craig Clarke "Living After Midnight: Hard and... (New England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Two-Bear Mambo (Mass Market Paperback)

Hap and Leonard just can't seem to keep themselves out of trouble. At the beginning of The Two-Bear Mambo, Leonard is yet again setting fire to the drug dealers' house next door. Their friend Lt. Hanson has to take them in just because, but when Hap's ex-girlfriend -- and Hanson's current squeeze -- Florida Grange goes missing, Hanson agrees to drop the charges if Hap and Leonard will go look for her in Grovetown, a burg in East Texas known for its violent Klan members, and where Florida was last seen.

The Two-Bear Mambo is so far the most unflinching in its portrayal of Southern racism. Grovetown is even worse than I could have imagined and Lansdale does not look away for a moment. Leonard is the obvious target, but Hap's association with him brings him into the fray of violence as well. And as for Florida: well, no one as yet has admitted to even seeing her...

My white Southern guilt was intensified while reading The Two-Bear Mambo; the characters, their ideas, and their violence are all-too familiar from my upbringing. So much so that I could barely even bring myself to read it in public, afraid of what the people around me -- seeing the N-word on nearly every page -- would think I was reading (as if the barely euphemistic title weren't embarrassing enough).

But the trademark Lansdale humor abounds in sarcastic remarks and in the first-person narration of Hap -- whose difference from the author himself seems to be getting less and less. Lansdale has said that he is very comfortable with the voice of Hap and the easy-going prose makes that obvious. Despite my emotional reaction to the book, I look forward to continuing the adventures of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. I'm glad they can't keep away from trouble; if they did, I'd be reading some other book that isn't nearly as fun.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A TOWN'S PURE EVIL ALMOST KILLS OUR TWO HEROES!!!!, September 11, 2001

By 

Wayne C. Rogers (Las Vegas, Nevada United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Two-Bear Mambo (Mass Market Paperback)

THE TWO-BEAR MAMBO by Joe R. Lansdale continues the saga of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine where MUCHO MOJO left off. It starts out with Hap arriving at Leonard's house on Christmas Eve night. Blasting out of his friend's home is the music to "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" and Leonard is next door, kicking righteous butt and burning down the neighborhood crack house once again. The police pull Hap and Leonard in, but Lieutenant Marvin Hanson gets them off the hook, provided they do him a small favor. It seems that Hap's old girlfriend, Florida Grange (the one who left him for Hanson) took off to Grovetown, Texas to do an article on a black musician who supposedly hung himself while in the custody of the local police. Florida has suddenly vanished, and Hanson wants Hap and Leonard to pay a visit to Grovetown to see if they can find out anything. The only problem is that this particular Texas town is right out of the fifties and sixties. It's a viper's nest filled with Klansmen, led by Jackson Brown, who enjoy murdering the black folks and seem to be getting away with it. Both Hap and Leonard know that they're going to have their hands full just trying to stay alive as they attempt to investigate Florida's disappearance. Even together, as tough as they are, both men are going to find out that they've bitten off more than they can chew when they take on the populace of Grovetown. They'll find themselves in the middle of free-for-all that would put Billy Jack to shame and come very close to getting beaten to death. Both men will discover true fear for the first time in their lives and have to find a way of dealing with it as their injuries heal, if they want to be able to face each other again, as well as solve the mystery of what happened to Florida when they eventually return to Grovetown to face the evil of its people. THE TWO-BEAR MAMBO will give you a slightly different perspective of our two heroes this time around, making them more flawed and human. As tough as Hap and Leonard are, they're not invincible, and both of them come very close to death as they seek to right a wrong. They will find out things about themselves that will at first be difficult to face; yet, in the long run will make them stronger. Though a part of me knows that these two characters are fictional, the writing is so good that another part of me almost believes that they're real. These are guys that I'd simply love to hang out with, and it's a tribute to the talent of Joe R. Lansdale that he's created such believable characters...characters who are funny, skilled martial artists, almost always unemployed, who have the same kinds of problems with relationships that real people do, and who have a strong sense of honor and justice that gets them into trouble more often than not. Mr. Lansdale is able to do this because he has a unique skill in writing that comes off as being natural and down to earth, but is actually a master craftsman at work. He knows how to make each and every character in the novel come alive in ways I wish other authors could emulate. I never know how each book is going to end; and, quite often, I find myself stunned by who gets killed off. As you can probably tell, the "Hap Collins/Leonard Pine" series has swept me off of my feet in a way that few other books have, and it's one I can highly recommend to any reader who loves novels filled with action, humor, self-reflection, and characters that make you truly believe. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do after I read SAVAGE SEASON and then CAPTAINS OUTRAGEOUS. I wish I could sit down with Hap and Leonard, have a beer, and talk about this particular problem. Of course, I wouldn't get any sympathy from them. In fact, I'd probably have to spend an hour or more listening to their problems!!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Winner from Lansdale, June 23, 2000

By 

tdeal11 "tdeal11" - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Two-Bear Mambo (Mass Market Paperback)

These Hap Collins/Leonard Pine books is probably the best series you've never heard of. If you're already a fan of the books , you know what to expect, a good plot, great characters, and maybe the best dialogue in the business. Two-Bear Mambo is my personal favorite. If you just discovered this series , start with the first book "Savage Season" and jump right in.