Hyenas

Hyenas by Joe R. Lansdale

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Hap drives over to the Big Frog Club to find the police questioning Leonard after Leonard put the hurt on three guys. One of the guys appreciates Leonard's toughness and hires him and Hap to get his younger brother away from a group of suspected bank robbers he's fallen in with. Can Hap and Leonard save Donny from the influence of Smoke Stack and the other thugs?



Hyenas was a worthy addition to the Hap and Leonard canon. It has all the hallmarks of a good Hap and Leonard tale: humor, cursing, and furious violence. My favorite line was "Brett thought it would be cute if we got matching guns with our initials on them," the we being Hap and Leonard. Funny stuff. The action was hard and fast when it arrived and the humor was top notch. You don't read too may stories these days that feature an Ultra-Light aircraft AND an reference to The Last Airbender.



So why only a 3? This thing cost $25 bucks and was barely a hundred pages long! If my math is correct, between this and Devil Red, Joe Lansdale has fifty of my dollars for under four hundred pages of story in two weeks time. It seems like Hyenas and Devil Red could have easily been bundled together. I'm not saying I feel ripped off but the lightness in my wallet is throwing off my manly stride a bit.



To sum things up, Hyenas is a good story and a worthy Hap and Leonard tale but get it on the cheap if you can.



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