Dead Aim

Dead Aim by Joe R. Lansdale
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When their friend Marvin Hanson offers them a job, Hap, Leonard, and an axe handle Hap named Agnes find themselves putting the fear of God into a woman's abusive ex-husband. The ex winds up dead with Hap in the wrong place at the wrong time when the cops show up. Can Hap and Leonard clear their names and figure out who killed the ex-husband?

Here we are, another installment in Joe Lansdale's Hap and Leonard series. For those of you who don't know, Hap and Leonard are like Spenser and Hawk, if they lived in Texas, didn't have any money, and Hawk was openly gay. In this particular installment, Hap and Leonard find themselves caught up in a scam involving gambling debts, insurance money, the Dixie Mafia, and people lying their asses off.

Hap and Leonard are in fine form. As usual with a Hap and Leonard book, I found myself laughing and wanting to read lines out loud. It's a little light on action until the end but it's a very quick read and the web of lies actually seemed pretty believable.

But it's not all bacon and avocado sandwiches. First off all, the story is only about 100 pages long. After Devil Red, Hyenas, and this one, I'd really like another Hap and Leonard that's over 275 pages at some point. My other gripe is the cover art. In and of itself, it's good art by Glen Orbik. However, the characters are about 20 years too young and look like the stars of a CW network show, not the grizzled tough guys depicted in the novel. Hap's talking about being old enough to be a grandfather in the book but the guy meant to be Hap on the cover looks about 25.

I'm giving this four stars since it was hilarious but I'm putting a frowny face next to the four since it's so short.

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