Bad Chili (Hap and Leonard Novels) [Audiobook] [MP3 CD]

I picked up this crazy East Texas-set tale entirely by accident and am I glad I did! I read the first sentence, laughed out loud and it was uphill from there. Bad Chili reminds me of Carl Hiaasen's work in that it contains similar ingredients: animals going mad (rabid squirrels in this case); psychotic bad guys; cool good guys; feisty, sexy chicks; great dialogue and deeply black-humoured set-piece scenes that really stick in your mind. (At one point Hap, our hero, is tortured to within an inch of his life and his plight will make all men wince in sympathy).

Essentially a revenge story of good versus evil, the good guys perpetrate enough bad deeds themselves to test the reader's moral standpoint. The truth is, though, that you'll be cheering as the bad guys are brought to justice.

Lansdale uses the conventions of the genre well and delivers a pacy, funny story of ordinary guys trying to make their world a better place.

'Bad Chili' is the first Lansdale book I have read but on this form it certainly will not be the last. Hal and his best friend Leonard are two Texas men who are just trying to live their lives. However, when Leonard's boyfriend leaves him and the body of a biker is found the police come looking to them as suspects. Can they discover who the real killer is and does it have anything to do with the chili king or a group of criminals producing illegal videos? 'Bad Chili' twists and turns to let us find out.

This book is very funny in sections but must also be noted as very violent. Some scenes where so bad that even I could barely stomach them - this has dropped the book from a 5 to a 4.

However, for fans of violent crime novels this is a must. The characters are well portrayed and the story is very witty. I am glad I stumbled across this book and look forward to reading other books by the author.

After having read Joe R. Lansdale's beautiful and poignant novel, THE BOTTOMS (everybody should read this!), I decided to back track and try some of the books in his "Hap Collins/Leonard Pine" series, starting with BAD CHILI. I hate to say it, but after just one novel, I'm now addicted to these two fascinating and utterly delightful characters. I found myself laughing so hard in the first four pages of this novel that I started crying and then got stomach cramps. I can't believe it's taken me so long to finally pick up a book by this fantastic author. I must've had my head buried in a hole of sand for the last seven years. What's BAD CHILI about? Well, it's about Hap Collins and Leonard Pine (a couple of schmucks as Leonard would say of himself and his friend) who find themselves getting caught up in the most outrageous and dangerous situations, usually because they're trying to help someone. Hap is white, in his mid-forties, hates violence, dislikes guns, tries to stay within the law, has a bald spot on the back of his head, and is generally the calmer of the two. Leonard is black and gay, trained in the martial arts, tougher than any five guys put together, and the first to lose his temper. When Hap returns home after working on an off shore oil rig for several months, he and Leonard go out into the woods to shoot cans and play catch up on each other's life. It isn't long before a big, mean squirrel with rabies comes bouncing out of the woods and chases Hap around the field before finally latching onto his arm. While Hap goes to the hospital, Leonard attempts to find his boyfriend, Raul, who's left him for another man. Both Raul and his new lover end up dead, and Leonard is blamed for their murders. This leads Hap and Leonard on a quest to find out whom the real killer is, not to mention the person behind a sex/video ring who films gays being beat up by several guys and then sexually abuse by them. Hap will encounter one of the most dangerous and biggest men he has ever met...a slightly deranged ex-wrestler who likes to apply electricity to a person's genitals before beating them to death with a baseball bat. If Hap thought the squirrel was deadly, waits till he meets Big Man Mountain! BAD CHILI is the most fun I've had with a novel in an extremely long time. I immediately loved the characters of Hap and Leonard, feeling as if these were two guys I'd like to know in real life. I couldn't get enough of the bantering between the two of them. Both men proved to be tough hombres who knew when to cross the line for payback. These are guys you'd want covering your back, or tracking down the killers after you're dead. They're like dogs with a bone that won't let go, no matter what the cost. Hurt them or one of their friends, and they'll track you down to the ends of the earth to get a little helping of revenge. Brett Sawyer, a cussing, sex-starved nurse who long ago bonked her husband on the head and then set him on fire, is Hap's new love interest, and she's just as tough as he is. Then, there's Jim Bob Luke, a professional P.I. who reminded me just a little bit of Steven Seagal in his ability to go in and take out the bad guys in less than thirty seconds with no mercy shown. Mr. Lansdale's writing in BAD CHILI is like a cold Corona going down on a hot Texas day-it makes you sigh with pure happiness when the last drop is finally swallowed. The story has more twists and turns than the Sabine River; and, as my late grandpappy would say, the trials and tribulations that Hap and Leonard go through would be enough to make a preacher cuss. BAD CHILI is definitely the real thing. It's the kind of book that adds a strong sense of joy to one's life and makes a reader glad that he's alive to have these kinds of experiences. Needless to say, I've already purchased the rest of the books in the series and intend on reading all of them within the next week or so. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!